American statesmen

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UNIVERSITY Of
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AMERICAN STATESMEN

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EDITED BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES

VOL. IV.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
GEORGE WASHINGTON

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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

American Statesmen

GEORGE WASHINGTON

BY

HENKY CABOT LODGE

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

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Copyright, 1889 and 1898,
By HENRY CABOT LODGE.

Copyright, 1898,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

All rights reserved.

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PKEFACE

This edition has been carefully revised, and
although very little has been added of late years
to our knowledge of the facts of Washington's
life, I have tried to examine all that has appeared.
The researches of Mr. Waters, which were pub-
lished just after these volumes in the first edition
had passed through the press, enable me to give
the Washington pedigree with certainty, and have
turned conjecture into fact. The recent publica-
tion in full of Lear's memoranda, although they
tell nothing new about Washington's last moments,
help toward a completion of all the details of the
scene.

H. C. LODGE.

Washington, February 7, 1898.

242

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction • 1

I. The Old Dominion 15

II. The Washingtons 30

III. On the Frontier 54

IV. Love and Marriage 95

V. Taking Command 128

VI. Saving the Revolution 158

VII. " Malice Domestic, and Foreign Levy " . 185

VIII. The Allies 241

IX. Arnold's Treason, and the War in the South 272

X. Yorktown 301

XI. Peace 321

ILLUSTEATIONS

George Washington Frontispiece

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart in the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston. This painting is owned by the Bos-
ton Athenaeum and is known as the Athenaeum portrait.

Autograph is from Washington's signature to a bill of
exchange, from " Talks about Autographs" by George
Birkbeck Hill.

The vignette of the residence of the Washington fam-
ily is from " Homes of American Statesmen," published
by Alfred W. Putnam, New York. Page

Lawrence Washington facing 56

From an original painting in the possession of Lawrence
Washington, Esq., Alexandria, Va., a great-great-great-
nephew.

Autograph from MS. in New York Public Library,
Lenox Building.
Miss Mary Cary facing 96

From an original painting owned by Dr. James D.
Moncure of Virginia, one of her descendants.

No autograph can be found.
Miss Mary Philipse facing 100

From Irving's "Washington," published by G. P.
Putnam's Sons.

Autograph from Appleton's " Cyclopaedia of American
Biography."

Washington crossing the Delaware .... facing 180
From the original painting by Emanuel Leutze in the
New York Metropolitan Museum. The United States
flag shown in the picture is an anachronism. The stars
and stripes were first adopted by Congress in June, 1777 ;
and any flag carried by Washington's army in December,
1776, would have consisted of the stripes with the crosses
of St. George and St. Andrew in the blue field where the
stars now appear.

INTRODUCTION

February 9 in the year 1800 was a gala day
in Paris. Napoleon had decreed a triumphal pro-
cession, and on that day a splendid military cere-
mony was performed in the Champ de Mars, and
the trophies of the Egyptian expedition were ex-
ultingly displayed. There were, however, two
features in all this pomp and show which seemed
strangely out of keeping with the glittering pa-
geant and the sounds of victorious rejoicing. The
standards and flags of the army were hung with
crape, and after the grand parade the dignitaries
of the land proceeded solemnly to the Temple of
Mars, and heard the eloquent M. de Fontanes
deliver an "Eloge Funebre."1

1 A report recently discovered shows that more even was in-
tended than was actually done.

The following1 is a translation of the paper, the original of
which is Nos. 172 and 173 of volume 51 of the manuscript series
known as Etats-Unis, 1799, 1800 (years 7 and 8 of the French
republic) : —

" Report of Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion
of the death of George Washington.
" A nation which some day will be a great nation, and which to-
day is the wisest and happiest on the face of the earth, weeps at
the bier of a man whose courage and genius contributed the most
to free it from bondage, and elevate it to the rank of an independ-
ent and sovereign power. The regrets caused by the death of

2 INTRODUCTION

About the same time, if tradition may be
trusted, the flags upon the conquering Channel
fleet of England were lowered to half-mast in

this great man, the memories aroused by these regrets, and a pro-
per veneration for all that is held dear and sacred by mankind,
impel us to give expression to our sentiments by taking part in
an event which deprives the world of one of its brightest orna-
ments, and removes to the realm of history one of the noblest
lives that ever honored the human race.

" The name of Washington is inseparably linked with a memo-
rable epoch. He adorned this epoch by his talents and the nobil-
ity of his character, and with virtues that even envy dared not as-
sail. History offers few examples of such renown. Great from
the outset of his career, patriotic before his country had become a
nation, brilliant and universal despite the passions and political
resentments that would gladly have cheeked his career, his fame
is to-day imperishable, — fortune having consecrated his claim to
greatness, while the prosperity of a people destined for grand
achievements is the best evidence of a fame ever to increase.

" His own country now honors his memory with funeral cere-
monies, having lost a citizen whose public actions and unassuming
grandeur in private life were a living example of courage, wisdom,
and unselfishness ; and France, which from the dawn of the Amer-
ican Revolution hailed with hope a nation, hitherto unknown, that
was discarding the vices of Europe, which foresaw all the glory
that this nation would bestow on humanity, and the enlighten-
ment of governments that would ensue from the novel character
of the social institutions and the new type of heroism of which
Washington and America were models for the world at large, —
France, I repeat, should depart from established usages and do
honor to one whose fame is beyond comparison with that of
others. '

" The man who, amid the decadence of modern ages, first dared
believe that he could inspire degenerate nations with courage to
rise to the level of republican virtues, lived for all nations and for
all centuries ; and this nation, which first saw in the life and suc-
cess of that illustrious man a foreboding of its destiny, and therein
recognized a future to be realized and duties to be performed, has

INTRODUCTION 3

token of grief for the same event which had
caused the armies of France to wear the custom-
ary badges of mourning.

If some "traveler from an antique land" had
observed these manifestations, he would have won-
dered much whose memory it was that had called
them forth from these two great nations, then
struggling fiercely with each other for supremacy
on land and sea. His wonder would not have
abated had he been told that the man for whom
they mourned had wrested an empire from one,
and at the time of his death was arming his coun-
trymen against the other.

These signal honors were paid by England and
France to a simple Virginian gentleman who had
never left his own country, and who when he died
held no other office than the titular command of
a provisional army. Yet although these marks
of respect from foreign nations were notable and
striking, they were slight and formal in compari-
son with the silence and grief which fell upon the
people of the United States when they heard that
Washington was dead. He had died in the full-
ness of time, quietly, quickly, and in his own
house, and yet his death called out a display of

every right to class him as a fellow-citizen. I therefore submit to

the First Consul the following decree : —

" Bonaparte, First Consul of the republic, decrees as follows : —
a Article 1. A statue is to he erected to General Washington.
" Article 2. This statue is to he placed in one of the squares

of Paris, to be chosen by the minister of the interior, and it shall

be his duty to execute the present decree."

4 INTRODUCTION

grief which has rarely been equaled in history.
The trappings and suits of woe were there of
course, but what made this mourning memorable
was that the land seemed hushed with sadness,
and that the sorrow dwelt among the people and
was neither forced nor fleeting. Men carried it
home with them to their firesides and to their
churches, to their offices and their workshops.
Every preacher took the life which had closed as
the noblest of texts, and every orator made it the
theme of his loftiest eloquence. For more than
a year the newspapers teemed with eulogy and
elegy, and both prose and poetry were severely
taxed to pay tribute to the memory of the great
one who had gone. The prose was often stilted
and the verse was generally bad, but yet through
it all, from the polished sentences of the funeral
oration to the humble effusions of the obscurest
poet's corner, there ran a strong and genuine feel-
ing, which the highest art could not refine nor the
clumsiest expression degrade.

From that time to this, the stream of praise has
flowed on, ever deepening and strengthening, both
at home and abroad. Washington alone in his-
tory seems to have risen so high in the estimation
of men that criticism has shrunk away abashed,
and has only been heard whispering in corners
or growling hoarsely in the now famous house in
Cheyne Row.

There is a world of meaning in all this, could
we but rightly interpret it. It cannot be brushed

INTRODUCTION 5

aside as mere popular superstition, formed of
fancies and prejudices, to which intelligent opposi-
tion would be useless. Nothing is in fact more
false than the way in which popular opinions are
often belittled and made light of. The opinion
of the world, however reached, becomes in the
course of years or centuries the nearest approach
we can make to final judgment on human things.
Don Quixote may be dumb to one man, and the
sonnets of Shakespeare may leave another cold
and weary. But the fault is in the reader. There
is no doubt of the greatness of Cervantes or Shake-
speare, for they have stood the test of time, and
the voices of generations of men, from which there
is no appeal, have declared them to be great.
The lyrics that all the world loves and repeats^
the poetry which is often called hackneyed, is on
the whole the best poetry. The pictures and
statues that have drawn crowds of admiring gazers
for centuries are the best. The things that are
"caviare to the general'' often undoubtedly have
much merit, but they lack quite as often the warm,
generous, and immortal vitality which appeals
alike to rich and poor, to the ignorant and to the
learned.

So it is with men. When years after his death
the world agrees to call a man great, the verdict
must be accepted. The historian may whiten or
blacken, the critic may weigh and dissect, the
form of the judgment may be altered, but the
central fact remains, and with the man, whom

6 INTRODUCTION

the world in its vague way has pronounced great,
history must reckon one way or the other, whether
for good or ill.

When we come to such a man as Washington,
the case is still stronger. Men seem to have
agreed that here was greatness which no one could
question, and character which no one could fail
to respect. Around other leaders of men, even
around the greatest of them, sharp controversies
have arisen, and they have their partisans dead
as they had them living. Washington had ene-
mies who assailed him, and friends whom he loved,
but in death as in life he seems to stand alone,
above conflict and superior to malice. In his own
country there is no dispute as to his greatness or
his worth. Englishmen, the most unsparing cen-
sors of everything American, have paid homage
to Washington, from the days of Fox and Byron
to those of Tennyson and Gladstone. In France
his name has always been revered, and in distant
lands those who have scarcely heard of the existence
of the United States know the country of Wash-
ington. To the mighty cairn which the nation
and the states have raised to his memory, stones
have come from Greece, sending a fragment of the
Parthenon; from Brazil and Switzerland, Turkey
and Japan, Siam and India beyond the Ganges.
On that sent by China we read: "In devising
plans, Washington was more decided than Ching
Shing or Woo Kwang; in winning a country he
was braver than Tsau Tsau or Ling Pi. Wielding

INTRODUCTION 7

his four-footed falchion, he extended the frontiers
and refused to accept the Royal Dignity. The
sentiments of the Three Dynasties have reap-
peared in him. Can any man of ancient or mod-
ern times fail to pronounce Washington peerless? "
These comparisons so strange to our ears tell of
a fame which has reached farther than we can
readily conceive.

Washington stands as a type, and has stamped
himself deep upon the imagination of mankind.
Whether the image be true or false is of no con-
sequence: the fact endures. He rises up from
the dust of history as a Greek statue comes pure
and serene from the earth in which it has lain for
centuries. We know his deeds; but what was it
in the man which has given him such a place in
the affection, the respect, and the imagination of
his fellow men throughout the world?

Perhaps this question has been fully answered
already. Possibly every one who has thought
upon the subject has solved the problem, so that
even to state it is superfluous. Yet a brilliant
writer, the latest historian of the American people,
has said: "General Washington is known to us,
and President Washington. But George Wash-
ington is an unknown man." These are pregnant
words, and that they should be true seems to
make any attempt to fill the great gap an act of
sheer and hopeless audacity. Yet there can be
certainly no reason for adding another to the
almost countless lives of Washington unless it be

8 INTRODUCTION

done with the object in view which Mr. McMaster
indicates. Any such attempt may fail in execu-
tion, but if the purpose be right it has at least
an excuse for its existence.

To try to add to the existing knowledge of the
facts in Washington's career would have but little
result beyond the multiplication of printed pages.
The antiquarian, the historian, and the critic have
exhausted every source, and the most minute de-
tails have been and still are the subject of endless
writing and constant discussion. Every house he
ever lived in has been drawn and painted ; every
portrait, and statue, and medal has been cata-
logued and engraved. His private affairs, his
servants, his horses, his arms, even his clothes,
have all passed beneath the merciless microscope
of history. His biography has been written and
rewritten. His letters have been drawn out from
every lurking place, and have been given to the
world in masses and in detachments. His battles
have been fought over and over again, and his
state papers have undergone an almost verbal
examination. Yet, despite his vast fame and all
the labors of the antiquarian and biographer,
Washington is still not understood, — as a man
he is unfamiliar to the posterity that reverences
his memory. He has been misrepresented more
or less covertly by hostile critics and by candid
friends, and has been disguised and hidden away
by the mistaken eulogy and erroneous theories of
devout admirers. All that any one now can do,

INTRODUCTION 9

therefore, is to endeavor from this mass of mate-
rial to depict the very man himself in the various
conjunctures of his life, and strive to see what
he really was and what he meant then, and what
he is and what he means to us and to the world
to-day.

In the progress of time Washington has become
in the popular imagination largely mythical; for
mythical ideas grow up in this nineteenth century,
notwithstanding its boasted intelligence, much as
they did in the infancy of the race. The old sen-
timent of humanity, more ancient and more lasting
than any records or monuments, which led men
in the dawn of history to worship their ancestors
and the founders of states, still endures. As the
centuries have gone by, this sentiment has lost its
religious flavor, and has become more and more
restricted in its application, but it has never been
wholly extinguished. Let some man arise great
above the ordinary bounds of greatness, and the
feeling which caused our progenitors to bow down
at the shrines of their forefathers and chiefs leads
us to invest our modern hero with a mythical
character, and picture him in our imagination as
a being to whom, a few thousand years ago, altars
would have been builded and libations poured out.

Thus we have to-day in our minds a Washing-
ton grand, solemn, and impressive. In this guise
he appears as a man of lofty intellect, vast moral
force, supremely successful and fortunate, and
wholly apart from and above all his fellow-men.

10 INTRODUCTION

This lonely figure rises up to our imagination
with all the imperial splendor of the Livian Au-
gustus, and with about as much warmth and life
as that unrivaled statue. In this vague but quite
serious idea there is a great deal of truth, but not
the whole truth. It is the myth of genuine love
and veneration springing from the inborn grati-
tude of man to the founders and chiefs of his race,
but it is not by any means the only one of its
family. There is another, equally diffused, of
wholly different parentage. In its inception this
second myth is due to the itinerant parson, book-
maker, and bookseller, Mason Weems. He wrote
a brief biography of Washington, of trifling his-
torical value, yet with sufficient literary skill to
make it widely popular. It neither appealed to
nor was read by the cultivated and instructed few,
but it reached the homes of the masses of the
people. It found its way to the bench of the
mechanic, to the house of the farmer, to the log
cabins of the frontiersman and pioneer. It was
carried across the continent on the first waves of
advancing settlement. Its anecdotes and its sim-
plicity of thought commended it to children both
at home and at school, and, passing through edi-
tion after edition, its statements were widely
spread, and it colored insensibly the ideas of hun-
dreds of persons who never had heard even the
name of the author. To Weems we owe the anec-
dote of the cherry-tree, and other tales of a similar
nature. He wrote with Dr. Beattie's life of his

INTRODUCTION 11

son before him as a model, and the result is that
Washington comes out in his pages a faultless
prig. Whether Weems intended it or not, that
is the result which he produced, and that is the
Washington who was developed from the wide
sale of his book. When this idea took definite
and permanent shape it caused a reaction. There
was a revolt against it, for the hero thus engendered
had qualities which the national sense of humor
could not endure in silence. The consequence is,
that the Washington of Weems has afforded an
endless theme for joke and burlesque. Every
professional American humorist almost has tried
his hand at it; and with each recurring 22d of
February the hard-worked jesters of the daily
newspapers take it up and make a little fun out
of it, sufficient for the day that is passing over
them. The opportunity is tempting, because of
the ease with which fun can be made when that
fundamental source of humor, a violent contrast,
can be employed. But there is no irreverence in
it all, for the jest is not aimed at the real Wash-
ington, but at the Washington portrayed in the
Weems biography. The worthy "rector of Mount
Vernon," as he called himself, meant no harm,
and there is a good deal of truth, no doubt, in his
book. But the blameless and priggish boy, and
the equally faultless and uninteresting man, whom
he originated, have become in the process of de-
velopment a myth. So in its further development
is the Washington of the humorist a myth. Both

12 INTRODUCTION

alike are utterly and crudely false. They resem-
ble their great original as much as Greenough's
classically nude statue, exposed to the incongrui-
ties of the North American climate, resembles in
dress and appearance the general of our armies
and the first President of the United States,

Such are the myth-makers. They are widely
different from the critics who have assailed Wash-
ington in a sidelong way, and who can be better
dealt with in a later chapter. These last bring
charges which can be met; the myth-maker pre-
sents a vague conception, extremely difficult to
handle because it is so elusive.

One of our well-known historical scholars and
most learned antiquarians, not long ago, in an
essay vindicating the "traditional Washington,"
treated with scorn the idea of a "new Washing-
ton " being discovered. In one sense this is quite
right, in another totally wrong. There can be
no new Washington discovered, because there
never was but one. But the real man has been
so overlaid with myths and traditions, and so
distorted by misleading criticisms, that, as has
already been suggested, he has been wellnigh lost.
We have the religious or statuesque myth, we
have the Weems myth, and the ludicrous myth of
the writer of paragraphs. We have the stately
hero of Sparks, and Everett, and Marshall, and
Irving, with all his great deeds as general and
president duly recorded and set down in polished
and eloquent sentences; and we know him to bo

INTRODUCTION 13

very great and wise and pure, and, be it said with
bated breath, very dry and cold. We are also
familiar with the commonplace man who so won-
derfully illustrated the power of character as set
forth by various persons, either from love of nov-
elty or because the great chief seemed to get in
the way of their own heroes.

If this is all, then the career of Washington and
his towering fame present a problem of which the
world has never seen the like. But this cannot
be all: there must be more behind. Every one
knows the famous Stuart portrait of Washington.
The last effort of the artist's cunning is there
employed to paint his great subject for posterity.
How serene and beautiful it is! It is a noble
picture for future agec to look upon. Still it is
not all. There is in the dining-room of Memorial
Hall at Cambridge another portrait, painted by
Savage. It is cold and dry, hard enough to serve
for the signboard of an inn, and able, one would
think, to withstand all weathers. Yet this picture
has something which Stuart left out. There is a
rugged strength in the face which gives us pause,
there is a massiveness in the jaw, telling of an
iron grip and a relentless will, which has infinite
meaning.

" Here 's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,
Gross jaw, and griped lips do what granite can
To give you the crown-grasper. What a man ! "

In death as in life, there is something about
Washington, call it greatness, dignity, majesty,

14 INTRODUCTION

what you will, which seems to hold men aloof and
keep them from knowing him. In truth he was
a most difficult man to know. Carlyle, crying
out through hundreds of pages and myriads of
words for the "silent man," passed by with a
sneer the most absolutely silent great man that
history can show. Washington's letters and
speeches and messages fill many volumes, but they
are all on business. They are profoundly silent
as to the writer himself. From this Carlyle con-
cluded apparently that there was nothing to tell,
— a very shallow conclusion if it was the one he
really reached. Such an idea was certainly far,
very far, from the truth.

Behind the popular myths, behind the statu-
esque figure of the orator and the preacher, be-
hind the general and the president of the histo-
rian, there was a strong, vigorous man, in whose
veins ran warm, red blood, in whose heart were
stormy passions and deep sympathy for human-
ity, in whose brain were far-reaching thoughts,
and who was informed throughout his being with
a resistless will. The veil of his silence is not
often lifted, and never intentionally, but now and
then there is a glimpse behind it; and in stray
sentences and in little incidents strenuously gath-
ered together; above all, in the right interpreta-
tion of the words, and the deeds, and the true
history known to all men, — we can surely find
George Washington "the noblest figure that ever
stood in the forefront of a nation's life."

GEORGE WASHINGTON

CHAPTER I

THE OLD DOMINION

To know George Washington, we must first of
all understand the society in which he was born and
brought up. As certain lilies draw their colors
from the subtle qualities of the soil hidden beneath
the water upon which they float, so are men pro-
foundly affected by the obscure and insensible
influences which surround their childhood and
youth. The art of the chemist may discover per-
haps the secret agent which tints the white flower
with blue or pink, but very often the elements,
which analysis detects, nature alone can combine.
The analogy is not strained or fanciful when we
apply it to a past society. We can separate, and
classify, and label the various elements, but to
combine them in such a way as to form a vivid
picture is a work of surpassing difficulty. This is
especially true of such a land as Virginia in the
middle of the last century. Virginian society, as
it existed at that period, is utterly extinct. John

16 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Randolph said it had departed before the year
1800. Since then another century, with all its
manifold changes, has wellnigh come and gone.
Most important of all, the last surviving institu-
tion of colonial Virginia has been swept away in
the crash of civil war, which has opened a gulf
between past and present wider and deeper than
any that time alone could make.

Life and society as they existed in the Virginia
of the eighteenth century seem, moreover, to have
been sharply broken and ended. We cannot
trace our steps backward, as is possible in most
cases, over the road by which the world has trav-
eled since those days. We are compelled to take
a long leap mentally in order to land ourselves
securely in the Virginia which honored the second
George, and looked up to Walpole and Pitt as
the arbiters of its fate.

We live in a period of great cities, rapid com-
munication, vast and varied business interests,
enormous diversity of occupation, great industries,
diffused intelligence, farming by steam, and with
everything and everybody pervaded by an unrest-
ing, high-strung activity. We transport ourselves
to the Virginia of Washington's boyhood, and
find a people without cities or towns, with no
means of communication except what was afforded
by rivers and wood roads; having no trades, no
industries, no means of spreading knowledge, only
one occupation, clumsily performed; and living
a quiet, monotonous existence, which can now

THE OLD DOMINION 17

hardly be realized. It is "a far cry to Loch-
Awe," as the Scotch proverb has it; and this old
Virginian society, although we should find it sorry
work living in it, is both pleasant and picturesque
in the pages of history.

The population of Virginia, advancing toward
half a million, and divided pretty equally between
the free whites and the enslaved blacks, was
densest, to use a most inappropriate word, at the
water's edge and near the mouths of the rivers.
Thence it crept backwards, following always the
lines of the watercourses, and growing ever thinner
and more scattered until it reached the Blue
Ridge. Behind the mountains was the wilder-
ness, haunted, as old John Lederer said a century
earlier, by monsters, and inhabited, as the eigh-
teenth-century Virginians very well knew, by sav-
ages and wild beasts, much more real and danger-
ous than the hobgoblins of their ancestors.

The population, in proportion to its numbers,
was very widely distributed. It was not collected
in groups, after the fashion with which we are
now familiar, for then there were no cities or
towns in Virginia. The only place which could
pretend to either name was Norfolk, the solitary
seaport, which, with its six or seven thousand
inhabitants, formed the most glaring exception
that any rule solicitous of proof could possibly
desire. Williamsburg, the capital, was a strag-
gling village, somewhat overweighted with the
public buildings and those of the college. It would

18 GEORGE WASHINGTON

light up into life and vivacity during the season
of politics and society, and then relapse again
into the country stillness. Outside of Williams-
burg and Norfolk there were various points which
passed in the catalogue and on the map for towns,
but which in reality were merely the shadows of
a name. The most populous consisted of a few
houses inhabited by storekeepers and traders,
some tobacco warehouses, and a tavern, clustered
about the church or court-house. Many others
had only the church, or, if a county seat, the
church and court-house, keeping solitary state in
the woods. There once a week the sound of
prayer and gossip, or at longer intervals the voices
of lawyers and politicians, and the shouts of the
wrestlers on the green, broke through the stillness
which with the going down of the sun resumed its
sway in the forests.

There was little chance here for that friction of
mind with mind, or for that quick interchange of
thought and sentiment and knowledge which are
familiar to the dwellers in cities, and which have
driven forward more rapidly than all else what we
call civilization. Rare meetings for special objects
with persons as solitary in their lives and as ill-
informed as himself, constituted to the average
Virginian the world of society, and there was
nothing from outside to supply the deficiencies at
home. Once a fortnight a mail crawled down
from the North, and once a month another crept
on to the South. George Washington was four

THE OLD DOMINION 19

years old when the first newspaper was published
in the colony, and he was twenty when the first
actors appeared at Williamsburg. What was not
brought was not sought. The Virginians did not
go down to the sea in ships. They were not a
seafaring race, and as they had neither trade nor
commerce they were totally destitute of the inquir-
ing, enterprising spirit, and of the knowledge
brought by those pursuits which involve travel
and adventure. The English tobacco-ships worked
their way up the rivers, taking the great staple,
and leaving their varied goods, and their tardy
news from Europe, wherever they stopped. This
was the sum of the information and intercourse
which Virginia got from across the sea, for trav-
elers were practically, unknown. Few came on
business, fewer still from curiosity. Stray ped-
dlers from the North, or trappers from beyond
the mountains with their packs of furs, chiefly
constituted what would now be called the traveling
public. There were in truth no means of travel-
ing except on foot, on horseback, or by boat on
the rivers, which formed the best and most expe-
ditious highways. Stage-coaches, or other public
conveyances, were unknown. Over some of the
roads the rich man, with his six horses and black
outriders, might make his way in a lumbering
carriage, but most of the roads were little better
than woodland paths; and the rivers, innocent of
bridges, offered in the uncertain fords abundance
of inconvenience, not unmixed with peril. The

20 GEORGE WASHINGTON

taverns were execrable, and only the ever-ready
hospitality of the people made it possible to get
from place to place. The result was that the
Virginians stayed at home, and sought and wel-
comed the rare stranger at their gates as if they
were well aware that they were entertaining angels.

It is not difficult to sift this home-keeping peo-
ple, and find out that portion which was Virginia,
for the mass was but an appendage of the small
fraction which ruled, led, and did the thinking
for the whole community. Half the people were
slaves, and in that single wretched word their
history is told. They were, on the whole, well
and kindly treated, but they have no meaning in
history except as an institution, and as an influ-
ence in the lives, feelings, -and character of the
men who made the state.

Above the slaves, little better than they in
condition, but separated from them by the wide
gulf of race and color, were the indented white
servants, some convicts, some redemptioners.
They, too, have their story told when we have
catalogued them. We cross another gulf and
come to the farmers, to the men who grew wheat
as well as tobacco on their own land, sometimes
working alone, sometimes the owners of a few
slaves. Some of these men were of the class well
known since as the "poor whites" of the South,
the weaker brothers who could not resist the poi-
son of slavery, but sank under it into ignorance
and poverty. They were contented because their

THE OLD DOMINION 21

skins were white, and because they were thereby
part of an aristocracy to whom labor was a badge
of serfdom. The larger portion of this middle
class, however, were thrifty and industrious enough.
Including as they did in their ranks the hunters
and pioneers, the traders and merchants, all the
freemen in fact who toiled and worked, they
formed the mass of the white population, and
furnished the bone and sinew and some of the
intellectual power of Virginia. The only profes-
sional men were the clergy, for the lawyers were
few, and growing to importance only as the Rev-
olution began; while the physicians were still
fewer, and as a class of no importance at all.
The clergy were a picturesque element in the
social landscape, but they were as a body very
poor representatives of learning, religion, and
morality. They ranged from hedge parsons and
Fleet chaplains, who had slunk away from Eng-
land to find a desirable obscurity in the new
world, to divines of real learning and genuine
piety, who were the supporters of the college,
and who would have been a credit to any society.
These last, however, were lamentably few in
number. The mass of the clergy were men who
worked their own lands, sold tobacco, were the
boon companions of the planters, hunted, shot,
drank hard, and lived well, performing their
sacred duties in a perfunctory and not always in
a decent manner.

The clergy, however, formed the stepping-stone

22 GEORGE WASHINGTON

socially between the farmers, traders, and small
planters, and the highest and most important class
in Virginian society. The great planters were
the men who owned, ruled, and guided Virginia.
Their vast estates were scattered along the rivers
from the seacoast to the mountains. Each plan-
tation was in itself a small village, with the
owner's house in the centre, surrounded by out-
buildings and negro cabins, and the pastures,
meadows, and fields of tobacco stretching away
on all sides. The rare traveler, pursuing his
devious way on horseback or in a boat, would
catch sight of these noble estates opening up from
the road or the river, and then the forest would
close in around him for several miles, until through
the thinning trees he would see again the white
cabins and the cleared fields of the next planta-
tion.

In such places dwelt the Virginian planters,
surrounded by their families and slaves, and in
a solitude broken only by the infrequent and
eagerly welcomed stranger, by their duties as
vestrymen and magistrates, or by the annual pil-
grimage to Williamsburg in search of society, or
to sit in the House of Burgesses. They were
occupied by the care of their plantations, which
involved a good deal of riding in the open air,
but which was at best an easy and indolent pursuit
made light by slave labor and trained overseers.
As a result the planters had an abundance of
spare time, which they devoted to cock-fighting,

THE OLD DOMINION 23

horse-racing, fishing, shooting, and fox-hunting,
— all, save the first, wholesome and manly sports,
but which did not demand any undue mental
strain. There is, indeed, no indication that the
Virginians had any great love for intellectual
exertion. When the amiable attorney -general of
Charles II. said to the Virginian commissioners,
pleading the cause of learning and religion,
"Damn your souls! grow tobacco ! " he uttered a
precept which the mass of the planters seem to
have laid to heart. For fifty years there were
no schools, and down to the Revolution even the
apologies bearing that honored name were few,
and the college was small and struggling. In
some of the great families, the eldest sons would
be sent to England and to the great universities :
they would make the grand tour, play a part in
the fashionable society of London, and come back
to their plantations fine gentlemen and scholars.
Such was Colonel Byrd, in the early part of the
eighteenth century, a friend of the Earl of Orrery,
and the author of certain amusing memoirs. Such
at a later day was Arthur Lee, doctor and diplo-
mat, student and politician. But most of these
young gentlemen thus sent abroad to improve their
minds and manners led a life not materially dif-
ferent from that of our charming friend, Harry
Warrington, after his arrival in England.

The sons who stayed at home sometimes gath-
ered a little learning from the clergyman of the
\ arish, or received a fair education at the College

24 GEORGE WASHINGTON

of William and Mary, but very many did not
have even so much as this. There was not in
truth much use for learning in managing a planta-
tion or raising horses, and men get along surpris-
ingly well without that which they do not need,
especially if the acquisition demands labor. The
Virginian planter thought little and read less,
and there were no learned professions to hold out
golden prizes and stimulate the love of knowledge.
The women fared even worse, for they could not
go to Europe or to William and Mary's, so that
after exhausting the teaching capacity of the par-
son they settled down to a round of household
duties and to the cares of a multitude of slaves,
working much harder and more steadily than their
lords and masters ever thought of doing.

The only general form of intellectual exertion
was that of governing. The planters managed
local affairs through the vestries, and ruled Vir-
ginia in the House of Burgesses. To this work
they paid strict attention, and, after the fashion
of their race, did it very well and very efficiently.
They were an extremely competent body whenever
they made up their minds to do anything; but
they liked the life and habits of Squire Western,
and saw no reason for adopting any others until
it was necessary.

There were, of course, vast differences in the
condition of the planters. Some counted their
acres by thousands and their slaves by hundreds,
while others scrambled along as best they might

THE OLD DOMINION 25

with one plantation and a few score of negroes.
Some dwelt in very handsome houses, picturesque
and beautiful, like Gunston Hall or Stratford, or
in vast, tasteless, and extravagant piles like Rose-
well. Others were contented with very modest
houses, consisting of one story with a gabled roof,
and flanked by two massive chimneys. In some
houses there was a brave show of handsome plate
and china, fine furniture, and London-made car-
riages, rich silks and satins, and brocaded dresses.
In others there were earthenware and pewter,
homespun and woolen, and little use for horses,
except in the plough or under the saddle.

But there were certain qualities common to all
the Virginia planters. The luxury was imperfect.
The splendor was sometimes barbaric. There were
holes in the brocades, and the fresh air of heaven
would often blow through a broken window upon
the glittering silver and the costly china. It was
an easy-going aristocracy, unfinished, and fre-
quently slovenly in its appointments, after the
fashion of the warmer climates and the regions of
slavery.

Everything was plentiful except ready money.
In this rich and poor were alike. They were all
ahead of their income, and it seems as if, from
one cause or another, from extravagance or im-
providence, from horses or the gaming-table, every
Virginian family went through bankruptcy about
once in a generation.

When Harry Warrington arrived in England,

26 GEORGE WASHINGTON

all his relations at Castlewood regarded the hand-
some young fellow as a prince, with his acres and
his slaves. It was a natural and pleasing delu-
sion, born of the possession of land and serfs, to
which the Virginians themselves gave ready cre-
dence. They forgot that the land was so plentiful
that it was of little value; that slaves were the
most wasteful form of labor; and that a failure
of the tobacco crop, pledged before it was gath-
ered, meant ruin, although they had been reminded
more than once of this last impressive fact. They
knew that they had plenty to eat and drink, and
a herd of people to wait upon them and cultivate
their land, as well as obliging London merchants
always ready to furnish every luxury in return for
the mortgage of a crop or an estate. So they
gave themselves little anxiety as to the future and
lived in the present, very much to their own satis-
faction.

To the communities of trade and commerce, to
the mercantile and industrial spirit of to-day,
such an existence and such modes of life appear
distressingly lax and unprogressive. The sages
of the bank parlors and the counting-rooms would
shake their heads at such spendthrifts as these,
refuse to discount their paper, and confidently
predict that by no possibility could they come to
good. They had their defects, no doubt, these
planters and farmers of Virginia. The life they
led was strongly developed on the animal side,
and was perhaps neither stimulating nor elevating.

THE OLD DOMINION 27

The living was the reverse of plain, and the think-
ing was neither extremely high nor notably labori-
ous. Yet in this very particular there is some-
thing rather restful and pleasant to the eye wearied
by the sight of incessant movement, and to the
ear deafened by the continual shout that nothing
is good that does not change, and that all change
must be good. We should probably find great
discomforts and many unpleasant limitations in
the life and habits of a hundred years ago on any
part of the globe, and yet at a time when it seems
as if rapidity and movement were the last words
and the ultimate ideals of civilization, it is rather
agreeable to turn to such a community as the eigh-
teenth-century planters of Virginia. They lived
contentedly on the acres of their fathers, and
except at rare and stated intervals they had no
other interests than those furnished by their an-
cestral domain. At the court-house, at the vestry,
or in Williamsburg, they met their neighbors and
talked very keenly about the politics of Europe,
or the affairs of the colony. They were little
troubled about religion, but they worshiped after
the fashion of their fathers, and had a serious
fidelity to church and king. They wrangled with
their governors over appropriations, but they lived
on good terms with those eminent persons, and
attended state balls at what they called the palace,
and danced and made merry with much stateliness
and grace. Their every-day life ran on in the
quiet of their plantations as calmly as one of their

28 GEORGE WASHINGTON

own rivers. The English trader would come and
go ; the infrequent stranger would be received and
welcomed; Christmas would be kept in hearty
English fashion; young men from a neighboring
estate would ride over through the darkening
woods to court, or dance, or play the fiddle, like
Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson; and these
simple events were all that made a ripple on the
placid stream. Much time was given to sports,
rough, hearty, manly sports, with a spice of
danger, and these, with an occasional adventurous
dash into the wilderness, kept them sound and
strong and brave, both in body and mind. There
was nothing languid or effeminate about the Vir-
ginian planter. He was a robust man, quite
ready to fight or work when the time came, and
well fitted to deal with affairs when he was needed.
He was a free-handed, hospitable, generous being,
not much given to study or thought, but thor-
oughly public-spirited and keenly alive to the
interests of Virginia. Above all things he was
an aristocrat, set apart by the dark line of race,
color, and hereditary servitude, as proud as the
proudest Austrian with his endless quarter ings,
as sturdy and vigorous as an English yeoman,
and as jealous of his rights and privileges as any
baron who stood by John at Runnymede. To this
aristocracy, careless and indolent, given to rough
pleasures and indifferent to the finer and higher
sides of life, the call came, as it comes to all men
sooner or later, and in response they gave their

THE OLD DOMINION 29

country soldiers, statesmen, and jurists of the
highest order, and fit for the great work they were
asked to do. We must go back to Athens to find
another instance of a society so small in numbers,
and yet capable of such an outburst of ability and
force. They were of sound English stock, with
a slight admixture of the Huguenots, the best blood
of France ; and although for a century and a half
they had seemed to stagnate in the New World,
they were strong, fruitful, and effective beyond the
measure of ordinary races when the hour of peril
and trial was at hand.

CHAPTER II

THE WASHINGTONS

Such was the world and such the community
which counted as a small fraction the Washington
family. Our immediate concern is with that fam-
ily, for before we approach the man we must know
his ancestors. The greatest leader of scientific
thought in this century has come to the aid of the
genealogist, and given to the results of the latter' s
somewhat discredited labors a vitality and mean-
ing which it seemed impossible that dry and dusty
pedigrees and barren tables of descent should ever
possess. We have always selected our race -horses
according to the doctrines of evolution, and we
now study the character of a great man by exam-
ining first the history of his forefathers.

Washington made so great an impression upon
the world in his lifetime that genealogists at once
undertook for him the construction of a suitable
pedigree. The excellent Sir Isaac Heard, garter
king-at-arms, worked out a genealogy which seemed
reasonable enough, and then wrote to the president
in relation to it. Washington in reply thanked
him for his politeness, sent him the Virginian
genealogy of his own branch, and after expressing

THE WASHINGTONS 31

a courteous interest said, in his simple and direct
fashion, that he had been a busy man and had
paid but little attention to the subject. His know-
ledge about his English forefathers was in fact
extremely slight. He had heard merely that the
first of the name in Virginia had come from one
of the northern counties of England, but whether
from Lancashire or Yorkshire, or one still more
northerly, he could not tell. Sir Isaac was not
thoroughly satisfied with the correctness of his
own work, but presently Baker took it up in his
history of Northamptonshire, and perfected it to
his own satisfaction and that of the world in
general. This genealogy derived Washington's
descent from the owners of the manor of Sulgrave,
in Northamptonshire, and thence carried it back
to the Norman knight, Sir William de Hertburn.
According to this pedigree the Virginian settlers,
John and Lawrence, were the sons of Lawrence
Washington of Sulgrave Manor, and this genea-
logy was adopted by Sparks and Irving, as well as
by the public at large. Twenty years ago, how-
ever, Colonel Chester, by his researches, broke
the most essential link in the chain forged by
Heard and Baker, proving clearly that the Vir-
ginian settlers could not have been the sons of
Lawrence of Sulgrave, as identified by the garter
king-at-arms. Still more recently the mythical
spirit has taken violent possession of the Wash-
ington ancestry, and an ingenious gentleman has
traced the pedigree of our first president back to

32 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Thorfinn and thence to Odin, which is sufficiently-
remote, dignified, and lofty to satisfy the most
exacting Welshman that ever lived. Still the
breach made by Colonel Chester was not repaired,
although many writers, including some who should
have known better, clung with undiminished faith
to the Heard pedigree. It was known that Colo-
nel Chester himself believed that he had found
the true line, coming, it is supposed, through a
younger branch of the Sulgrave race, but he died
before he had discovered the one bit of evidence
necessary to prove an essential step, and he was
too conscientiously accurate to leave anything to
conjecture. Since then the researches of Mr.
Henry E. Waters have established the pedigree
of the Virginian Washingtons, and we are now
able to know something of the men from whom
George Washington drew his descent.

In that interesting land where everything, ac-
cording to our narrow ideas, is upside down, it is
customary, when an individual arrives at distinc-
tion, to confer nobility upon his ancestors instead
of upon his children. The Washingtons offer an
interesting example of the application of this Chi-
nese system in the Western world, for, if they
have not been actually ennobled in recognition of
the deeds of their great descendant, they have at
least become the subjects of intense and general
interest. Every one of the name who could be
discovered anywhere has been dragged forth into
the light, and has had all that was known about

THE WASHINGTONS 33

him duly recorded and set down. By scanning
family trees and pedigrees, and picking up stray
bits of information here and there, we can learn
in a rude and general fashion what manner of
men those were who claimed descent from William
of Hertburn, and who bore the name of Washing-
ton in the mother-country. As Mr. Galton passes
a hundred faces before the same highly sensitized
plate, and gets a photograph which is a likeness of
no one of his subjects, and yet resembles them all,
so we may turn the camera of history upon these
Washingtons, as they flash up for a moment from
the dim past, and hope to obtain what Professor
Huxley calls a "generic " picture of the race, even
if the outlines be somewhat blurred and indistinct.
In the North of England, in the region con-
quered first by Saxons and then by Danes, lies
the little village of Washington. It came into
the possession of Sir William de Hertburn, and
belonged to him at the time of the Boldon Book
in 1183. Soon after, he or his descendants took
the name of De Wessyngton, and there they re-
mained for two centuries, knights of the palati-
nate, holding their lands by a military tenure,
fighting in all the wars, and taking part in tour-
naments with becoming splendor. By the begin-
ning of the fifteenth century the line of feudal
knights of the palatinate was extinct, and the
manor passed from the family by the marriage of
Dionisia de Wessyngton. But the main stock had
in the mean time thrown out many offshoots,

34 GEORGE WASHINGTON

which had taken firm root in other parts and in
many counties of England. We hear of several
who came in various ways to eminence. There
was the learned and vigorous prior of Durham,
John de Wessyngton, probably one of the origi-
nal family, and the name appears in various places
after his time in records and on monuments, indi-
cating a flourishing and increasing race. Law-
rence Washington, the direct ancestor of the first
President of the United States, was, in the six-
teenth century , the mayor of Northampton, and
received from King Henry VIII. the manor of
Sulgrave in 1538. In the next century we find
traces of Robert Washington of the Adwick fam-
ily, a rich merchant of Leeds, and of his son
Joseph Washington, a learned lawyer and author,
of Gray's Inn. About the same time we hea*r
of Richard Washington and Philip Washington
holding high places at University College, Ox-
ford. The Sulgrave branch, however, was the most
numerous and prosperous. From the mayor of
Northampton were descended Sir William Wash-
ington, who married the half-sister of George
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; Sir Henry Wash-
ington, who made a desperate defense of Worces-
ter against the forces of the Parliament in 1646 ;
Lieutenant-Colonel James Washington, who fell
at the siege of Pontefract, fighting for King
Charles ; another James, of a later time, who was
implicated in Monmouth's rebellion, fled to Hol-
land and became the progenitor of a flourishing

THE WASHINGTONS 35

and successful family, which has spread to Ger-
many and there been ennobled; Sir Lawrence
Washington, of Garsdon, whose grand-daughter
married Robert Shirley, Baron Ferrers; and oth-
ers of less note, but all men of property and stand-
ing. They seem to have been a successful, thrifty
race, owning lands and estates, wise magistrates
and good soldiers, marrying well, and increasing
their wealth and strength from generation to gen-
eration. They were of Norman stock, knights
and gentlemen in the full sense of the word before
the French Revolution, and we can detect in them
here and there a marked strain of the old Norse
blood, carrying with it across the centuries the
wild Berserker spirit which for centuries made
the adventurous Northmen the terror of Europe.
They were a strong race evidently, these Washing-
tons, whom we see now only by glimpses through
the mists of time, not brilliant apparently, never
winning the very highest fortune, having their
failures and reverses no doubt, but on the whole
prudent, bold men, always important in their
several stations, ready to fight and ready to work,
and as a rule successful in that which they set
themselves to do.

In 1658 the two brothers, John and Lawrence,
appeared in Virginia. As has been proved by
Mr. Waters, they were of the Sulgrave family,
the sons of Lawrence Washington, fifth son of the
elder Lawrence of Sulgrave and Brington. The
father of the emigrants was a fellow of Brase-

36 GEORGE WASHINGTON

nose College, Oxford, and rector of Purleigh,
from which living he was ejected by the Puritans
as both "scandalous" and "malignant." That he
was guilty of the former charge we may well
doubt; but that he was, in the language of the
time, "malignant," must be admitted, for all his
family, including his brothers, Sir William Wash-
ington of Packington, and Sir John Washington
of Thrapston, his nephew, Sir Henry Washing-
ton, and his nephew-in-law, William Legge, an-
cestor of the Earl of Dartmouth, were strongly
on the side of the king. In a marriage which
seems to have been regarded as beneath the dig-
nity of the family, and in the poverty consequent
upon the ejectment from his living, we can find
the reason for the sons of the Rev. Lawrence
Washington going forth into Virginia to find their
fortune, and flying from the world of victorious
Puritanism which offered just then so little hope to
royalists like themselves. Yet what was poverty
in England was something much more agreeable in
the New World of America. The emigrant bro-
thers at all events seem to have had resources of a
sufficient kind, and to have been men of substance,
for they purchased lands and established them-
selves at Bridges Creek, in Westmoreland County.
With this brief statement, Lawrence disappears,
leaving us nothing further than the knowledge
that he had numerous descendants. John, with
whom we are more concerned, figures at once in
the colonial records of Maryland. He made com-

THE WASHINGTONS 37

plaint to the Maryland authorities, soon after his
arrival, against Edward Prescott, merchant, and
captain of the ship in which he had come over,
for hanging a woman during the voyage for witch-
craft. We have a letter of his, explaining that
he could not appear at the first trial because he
was about to baptize his son, and had bidden the
neighbors and gossips to the feast. A little inci-
dent this, dug out of the musty records, but it
shows us an active, generous man, intolerant of
oppression, public-spirited and hospitable, social,
and friendly in his new relations. He soon after
was called to mourn the death of his English wife
and of two children, but he speedily consoled
himself by taking a second wife, Anne Pope, by
whom he had three children, Lawrence, John,
and Anne. According to the Virginian tradition,
John Washington the elder was a surveyor, and
made a location of lands which was set aside be-
cause they had been assigned to the Indians. It
is quite apparent that he was a forehanded person
who acquired property and impressed himself upon
his neighbors. In 1667, when he had been but
ten years in the colony, he was chosen to the
House of Burgesses ; and eight years later he was
made a colonel and sent with a thousand men to
join the Marylanders in destroying the "Susque-
hannocks," at the "Piscataway" fort, on account
of some murdering begun by another tribe. As
a feat of arms, the expedition was not a very
brilliant affair. The Virginians and Marylanders

38 GEORGE WASHINGTON

killed half a dozen Indian chiefs during a parley,
and then invested the fort. After repulsing sev-
eral sorties, they stupidly allowed the Indians to
escape in the night and carry murder and pillage
through the outlying settlements, lighting up first
the flames of savage war and then the fiercer fire
of domestic insurrection. In the next year we
hear again of John Washington in the House of
Burgesses, when Sir William Berkeley assailed
his troops for the murder of the Indians during
the parley. Popular feeling, however, was clearly
with the colonel, for nothing was done and the
matter dropped. At that point, too, in 1676,
John Washington disappears from sight, and we
know only that as his will was proved in 1677,
he must have died soon after the scene with Berke-
ley. He was buried in the family vault at Bridges
Creek, and left a good estate to be divided among
his children. The colonel was evidently both a
prudent and popular man, and quite disposed to
bustle about in the world in which he found him-
self. He acquired lands, came to the front at
once as a leader although a new-comer in the
country, was evidently a fighting man as is shown
by his selection to command the Virginian forces,
and was honored by his neighbors, who gave his
name to the parish in which he dwelt. Then he
died and his son Lawrence reigned in his stead,
and became by his wife, Mildred Warner, the
father of John, Augustine, and Mildred Washing-
ton.

THE WASHINGTONS 39

This second son, Augustine, farmer and planter
like his forefathers, married first Jane Butler, by
whom he had three sons and a daughter, and
second, Mary Ball, by whom he had four sons
and two daughters. The eldest child of these
second nuptials was named George, and was born
on February 11 (O. S.), 1732, at Bridges Creek.
The house in which this event occurred was a
plain, wooden farmhouse of the primitive Virgin-
ian pattern, with four rooms on the ground floor,
an attic story with a long, sloping roof, and a
massive brick chimney. Three years after George
Washington's birth it is said to have been burned,
and the family for this or some other reason re-
moved to another estate in what is now Stafford
County. The second house was like the first, and
stood on rising ground looking across a meadow
to the Rappahannock, and beyond the river to
the village of Fredericksburg, which was nearly
opposite. Here, in 1743, Augustine Washington
died somewhat suddenly, at the age of forty -nine,
from an attack of gout brought on by exposure
in the rain, and was buried with his fathers in
the old vault at Bridges Creek. Here, too, the
boyhood of Washington was passed, and therefore
it becomes necessary to look about us and see
what we can learn of this important period of
his life.

We know nothing about his father, except that
he was kindly and affectionate, attached to his
wife and children, and apparently absorbed in

40 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the care of his estates. On his death the children
came wholly under the maternal influence and
direction. Much lias been written about the
"mother of Washington," but as a matter of fact,
although she lived to an advanced age, we know
scarcely more about her than we do about her
husband. She was of gentle birth, and possessed
a vigorous character and a good deal of business
capacity. The advantages of education were given
in but slight measure to the Virginian ladies of
her time, and Mrs. Washington offered no excep-
tion to the general rule. Her reading was con-
fined to a small number of volumes, chiefly of a
devotional character, her favorite apparently being
Hale's "Moral and Divine Contemplations." She
evidently knew no language but her own, and her
spelling was extremely bad even in that age of
uncertain orthography. Certain qualities, how-
ever, are clear to us even now through all the
dimness. We can see that Mary Washington
was gifted with strong sense, and had the power
of conducting business matters providently and
exactly. She was an imperious woman, of strong
will, ruling her kingdom alone. Above all she
was very dignified, very silent, and very sober-
minded. That she was affectionate and loving
cannot be doubted, for she retained to the last
a profound hold upon the reverential devotion of
her son, and yet as he rose steadily to the pinna-
cle of human greatness, she could only say that
"George had been a good boy, and she was sure

THE WASHINGTON 41

he would do his duty." Not a brilliant woman
evidently, not one suited to shine in courts, con-
duct intrigues, or adorn literature, yet able to
transmit moral qualities to her oldest son, which,
mingled with those of the Washingtons, were of
infinite value in the foundation of a great Repub-
lic. She found herself a widow at an early age,
with a family of young children to educate and
support. Her means were narrow, for although
Augustine Washington was able to leave what
was called a landed estate to each son, it was
little more than idle capital, and the income in
ready money was by no means so evident as the
acres.

Many are the myths, and deplorably few the
facts, that have come down to us in regard to
Washington's boyhood. For the former we are
indebted to the illustrious Weems, and to that
personage a few more words must be devoted.
Weems has been held up to the present age in
various ways, usually, it must be confessed, of an
unflattering nature, and "mendacious" is the
adjective most commonly applied to him. There
has been in reality a good deal of needless confu-
sion about Weems and his book, for he was not
a complex character, and neither he nor his writ-
ings are difficult to value or understand. By
profession a clergyman or preacher, by nature an
adventurer, Weems loved notoriety, money, and
a wandering life. So he wrote books which he
correctly believed would be popular, and sold

42 GEORGE WASHINGTON

them not only through the regular channels, but
by peddling them himself as he traveled about
the country. In this way he gratified all his pro-
pensities, and no doubt derived from life a good
deal of simple pleasure. Chance brought him
near Washington in the closing days, and his
commercial instinct told him that here was the
subject of all others for his pen and his market.
He accordingly produced the biography which had
so much success. Judged solely as literature, the
book is beneath contempt. The style is turgid,
overloaded, and at times silly. The statements
are loose, the mode of narration confused and in-
coherent, and the moralizing is flat and common-
place to the last degree. Yet there was a certain
sincerity of feeling underneath all the bombast
and platitudes, and this saved the book. The
biography did not go, and was not intended to
go, into the hands of the polite society of the
great eastern towns. It was meant for the farm-
ers, the pioneers, and the backwoodsmen of the
country. It went into their homes, and passed
with them beyond the Alleghanies and out to the
plains and valleys of the great West. The very
defects of the book helped it to success among the
simple, hard-working, hard-fighting race engaged
in the conquest of the American continent. To
them its heavy and tawdry style, its staring mor-
als, and its real patriotism all seemed eminently
befitting the national hero, and thus Weems cre-
ated the Washington of the popular fancy. The

THE WASHINGTONS 43

idea grew up with the country, and became so
ingrained in the popular thought that finally
everybody was affected by it, and even the most
stately and solemn of the Washington biographers
adopted the unsupported tales of the itinerant
parson and book-peddler.

In regard to the public life of Washington,
Weems took the facts known to every one, and
drawn for the most part from the gazettes. He
then dressed them up in his own peculiar fashion
and gave them to the world. All this, forming
of course nine tenths of his book, has passed,
despite its success, into oblivion. The remaining
tenth described Washington's boyhood until his
fourteenth or fifteenth year, and this, which is
the work of the author's imagination, has lived.
Weems, having set himself up as absolutely the
only authority as to this period, has been impli-
citly followed, and has thus come to demand seri-
ous consideration. Until Weems is weighed and
disposed of, we cannot even begin an attempt to
get at the real Washington.

Weems was not a cold-blooded liar, a mere
forger of anecdotes. He was simply a man desti-
tute of historical sense, training, or morals, ready
to take the slenderest fact and work it up for the
purposes of the market until it became almost as
impossible to reduce it to its original dimensions
as it was for the fisherman to get the Afrit back
into his jar. In a word, Weems was an approved
myth-maker. No better example can be given

44 GEORGE WASHINGTON

than the way in which he described himself. It
is believed that he preached once, and possibly
oftener, to a congregation which numbered Wash-
ington among its members. Thereupon he pub-
lished himself in his book as the rector of Mount
Vernon parish. There was, to begin with, no
such parish. There was Truro parish, in which
was a church called indifferently Pohick or Mount
Vernon church. Of this church Washington was
a vestryman until 1785, when he joined the church
at Alexandria. The Rev. Lee Massey was the
clergyman of the Mount Vernon church, and the
church at Alexandria had nothing to do with
Mount Vernon. There never was, moreover, such
a person as the rector of Mount Vernon parish,
but it was the Weems way of treating his appear-
ance before the great man, and of deceiving the
world with the notion of an intimacy which the
title implied.

Weems, of course, had no difficulty with the
public life, but in describing the boyhood he was
thrown on his own resources, and out of them he
evolved the cherry-tree, the refusal to fight or
permit fighting among the boys at school, and the
initials in the garden. This last story is to the
effect that Augustine Washington planted seeds
in such a manner that when they sprouted they
formed on the earth the initials of his son's name,
and the boy being much delighted thereby, the
father explained to him that it was the work of
the Creator, and thus inculcated a profound belief

THE WASHINGTONS 45

in God. This tale is taken bodily from Dr.
Beattie's biographical sketch of his son, published
in England in 1799, and may be dismissed at
once. As to the other two more familiar anec-
dotes there is not a scintilla of evidence that they
had any foundation, and with them may be in-
cluded the colt story, told by Mr. Custis, a simple
variation of the cherry-tree theme, which is Wash-
ington's early love of truth. Weems says that
his stories were told him by a lady, and "a good
old gentleman," who remembered the incidents,
while Mr. Custis gives no authority for his minute
account of a trivial event over a century old when
he wrote. To a writer who invented the rector
of Mount Vernon, the further invention of a
couple of Bos wells would be a trifle. I say Bos-
wells advisedly, for these stories are told with the
utmost minuteness, and the conversations between
Washington and his father are given as if from
a stenographic report. How Mr. Custis, usually
so accurate, came to be so far infected with the
Weems myth as to tell the colt story after the
Weems manner, cannot now be determined. There
can be no doubt that Washington, like most
healthy boys, got into a good deal of mischief,
and it is not at all impossible that he injured
fruit-trees and confessed that he had done so. It
may be accepted as certain that he rode and mas-
tered many unbroken thoroughbred colts, and it is
possible that one of them burst a blood-vessel in
the process and died, and that the boy promptly

46 GEORGE WASHINGTON

told his mother of the accident. But this is the
utmost credit which these two anecdotes can claim.
Even so much as this cannot be said of certain
other improving tales of like nature. That Wash-
ington lectured his playmates on the wickedness
of fighting, and in the year 1754 allowed himself
to be knocked down in the presence of his soldiers,
and thereupon begged his assailant's pardon for
having spoken roughly to him, are stories so silly
and so foolishly impossible that they do not de-
serve an instant's consideration.

There is nothing intrinsically impossible in
either the cherry-tree or the colt incident, nor
would there be in a hundred others which might
be readily invented. The real point is that these
stories, as told by Weems and Mr. Custis, are on
their face hopelessly and ridiculously false. They
are so, not merely because they have no vestige
of evidence to support them, but because they are
in every word and line the offspring of a period
more than fifty years later. No English-speaking
people, certainly no Virginians, ever thought or
behaved or talked in 1740 like the personages in
Weems 's stories, whatever they may have done in
1790, or at the beginning of the next century.
These precious anecdotes belong to the age of'
Miss Edgeworth and Hannah More and Jane Tay-
lor. They are engaging specimens of the "Harry
and Lucy " and "Purple Jar" morality, and accu-
rately reflect the pale didacticism which became
fashionable in England at the close of the last

THE WASHINGTONS 47

century. They are as untrue to nature and to
fact at the period to which they are assigned as
would be efforts to depict Augustine Washington
and his wife in the dress of the French revolution
discussing the propriety of worshiping the God-
dess of Reason.

To enter into any serious historical criticism of
these stories would be to break a butterfly. So
much as this even has been said only because these
wretched fables have gone throughout the world,
and it is time that they were swept away into the
dust-heaps of history. They represent Mr. and
Mrs. Washington as affected and priggish people,
given to cheap moralizing, and, what is far worse,
they have served to place Washington himself in
a ridiculous light to an age which has outgrown
the educational foibles of seventy -five years ago.
Augustine Washington and his wife were a gentle-
man and lady of the eighteenth century, living in
Virginia. So far as we know without guessing or
conjecture, they were simple, honest, and straight-
forward, devoted to the care of their family and
estate, and doing their duty sensibly and after the
fashion of their time. Their son, to whom the
greatest wrong has been done, not only never did
anything common or mean, but from the begin-
ning to the end of his life he was never for an
instant ridiculous or affected, and he was as
utterly removed from canting or priggishness as
any human being could well be. Let us therefore
consign the Weems stories and their offspring to

48 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the limbo of historical rubbish, and try to learn
what the plain facts tell us of the boy Washing-
ton.

Unfortunately these same facts are at first very
few, so few that they tell us hardly anything.
We know when and where Washington was born ;
and how, when he was little more than three years
old,1 he was taken from Bridges Creek to the
banks of the Rappahannock. There he was placed
under the charge of one Hobby, the sexton of the
parish, to learn his alphabet and his pothooks;
and when that worthy man's store of learning was
exhausted he was sent back to Bridges Creek,
soon after his father's death, to live with his
half-brother Augustine, and obtain the benefits
of a school kept by a Mr. Williams. There he
received what would now be called a fair common-
school education, wholly destitute of any instruc-
tion in languages, ancient or modern, but appar-
ently with some mathematical training.

That he studied faithfully cannot be doubted,
and we know, too, that he matured early, and was
a tall, active, and muscular boy. He could out-
walk and outrun and outride any of his compan-
ions. As he could no doubt have thrashed any of
them too, he was, in virtue of these qualities,
which are respected everywhere by all wholesome
minds, and especially by boys, a leader among his

1 There is a conflict about the period of this removal (see
above, p. 37). Tradition places it in 1735, but the Rev. Mr.
McGuire (Religious Opinions of Washington) puts it in 1739.

THE WASHINGTONS 49

school-fellows. We know further that he was
honest and true, and a lad of unusual promise,
not because of the goody-goody anecdotes of the
myth-makers, but because he was liked and trusted
by such men as his brother Lawrence and Lord
Fairfax.

There he was, at all events, in his fourteenth
year, a big, strong, hearty boy, offering a serious
problem to his mother, who was struggling along
with many acres, little money, and five children.
Mrs. Washington's chief desire naturally was to
put George in the way of earning a living, which
no doubt seemed far more important than getting
an education, and, as he was a sober-minded boy,
the same idea was probably profoundly impressed
on his own mind also. This condition of domestic
affairs led to the first attempt to give Washington
a start in life, which has been given to us until
very lately in a somewhat decorated form. The
fact is, that in casting about for something to do,
it occurred to some one, very likely to the boy
himself, that it would be a fine idea to go to sea.
His masculine friends and relatives urged the
scheme upon Mrs. Washington, who consented
very reluctantly, if at all, not liking the notion
of parting with her oldest son, even in her anxiety
to have him earn his bread. When it came to
the point, however, she finally decided against
his going, determined probably by a very sensible
letter from her brother, Joseph Ball, an English
lawyer. In all the ornamented versions we are

50 GEORGE WASHINGTON

informed that the boy was to enter the royal
navy, and that a midshipman's warrant was pro-
cured for him. There does not appear to be any
valid authority for the royal navy, the warrant,
or the midshipman. The contemporary Virginian
letters speak simply of "going to sea," while Mr.
Ball says distinctly that the plan was to enter the
boy on a tobacco-ship, with an excellent chance of
being pressed on a man-of-war, and a very faint
prospect of either getting into the navy, or even
rising to be the captain of one of the petty trad-
ing-vessels familiar to Virginian planters. Some
recent writers have put Mr. Ball aside as not know-
ing what was intended in regard to his nephew,
but in view of the difficulty at that time of obtain-
ing commissions in the navy without great political
influence, it seems probable that Mrs. Washing-
ton's brother knew very well what he was talking
about, and he certainly wrote a very sensible
letter. A bold, adventurous boy, eager to earn
his living and make his way in the world, would,
like many others before him, look longingly to
the sea as the highway to fortune and success.
To Washington the romance of the sea was repre-
sented by the tobacco-ship creeping up the river
and bringing all the luxuries and many of the
necessaries of life from vaguely distant countries.
No doubt he wished to go on one of these ves-
sels and try his luck, and very possibly the royal
navy was hoped for as the ultimate result. The
effort was certainly made to send him to sea, but

THE WASHINGTONS 51

it failed, and he went back to school to study more
mathematics.

Apart from the fact that the exact sciences in
moderate degree were about all that Mr. Wil-
liams could teach, this branch of learning had an
immediate practical value, inasmuch as surveying
was almost the only immediately gainful pursuit
open to a young Virginia gentleman, who sorely
needed a little ready money that he might buy
slaves and work a plantation. So Washington
studied on for two years more, and fitted himself
to be a surveyor. There are still extant some
early papers belonging to this period, chiefly
fragments of school exercises, which show that
he already wrote the bold, handsome hand with
which the world was to become familiar, and
that he made geometrical figures and notes of
surveys with the neatness and accuracy which
clung to him in all the work of his life, whether
great or small. Among those papers, too, were
found many copies of legal forms, and a set of
rules, over a hundred in number, as to etiquette
and behavior, carefully written out. It has al-
ways been supposed that these rules were copied,
but it was reserved apparently for the storms of
a mighty civil war to lay bare what may have
been, if not the source of the rules themselves,
the origin and suggestion of their compilation.
At that time a little volume was found in Vir-
ginia bearing the name of George Washington
in a boyish hand on the fly-leaf, and the date

52 GEORGE WASHINGTON

1742. The book was entitled, "The Young Man's
Companion. " It was an English work, and had
passed through thirteen editions, which was little
enough in view of its varied and extensive infor-
mation. It was written by W. Mather, in a
plain and easy style, and treated of arithmetic,
surveying, forms for legal documents, the mea-
suring of land and lumber, gardening, and many
other useful topics, and it contained general pre-
cepts which, with the aid of Hale's "Contempla-
tions," may readily have furnished the hints for
the rules found in manuscript among Washing-
ton's papers.1 These rules were in the main wise
and sensible, and it is evident they had occupied
deeply the boy's mind.2 They are for the most
part concerned with the commonplaces of etiquette
and good manners, but there is something not
only apt but quite prophetic in the last one,
"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little
spark of celestial fire called conscience." To sup-
pose that Washington's character was formed by
these sententious bits of not very profound wisdom
would be absurd ; but that a series of rules which
most lads would have regarded as simply dull
should have been written out and pondered by
this boy indicates a soberness and thoughtfulness

1 An account of this volume was given in the New York Trib-
une in 1866, and also in the Historical Magazine (x. 47).

2 The most important are given in Sparks' Writings of Wash-
ington, ii. 412, and they may he found complete in the little pam-
phlet concerning them, excellently edited by Dr. J. M. Toner, of
Washington.

THE WASHINGTONS 53

of mind which certainly are not usual at that age.
The chief thought that runs through all the say-
ings is to practice self-control, and no man ever
displayed that most difficult of virtues to such a
degree as George Washington. It was no ordinary
boy who took such a lesson as this to heart before
he was fifteen, and carried it into his daily life,
never to be forgotten. It may also be said that
very few boys ever needed it more; but those
persons who know what they chiefly need, and
pursue it, are by no means common.

CHAPTER III

ON THE FRONTIER

While Washington was working his way
through the learning purveyed by Mr. Williams,
he was also receiving another education, of a much
broader and better sort, from the men and women
among whom he found himself, and with whom
he made friends. Chief among them was his
eldest brother, Lawrence, fourteen years his sen-
ior, who had been educated in England, had
fought with Vernon at Carthagena, and had then
returned to Virginia, to be to him a generous
father and a loving friend. As the head of the
family, Lawrence Washington had received the
lion's share of the property, including the estate
at Hunting Creek, on the Potomac, which he
christened Mount Vernon, after his admiral, and
where he settled down and built him a goodly
house. To this pleasant spot George Washington
journeyed often in vacation time, and there he
came to live and further pursue his studies, after
leaving school in the autumn of 1747.

Lawrence Washington had married the daugh-
ter of William Fairfax, the proprietor of Belvoir,
a neighboring plantation, and the agent for the

ON THE FRONTIER 65

vast estates held by his family in Virginia. George
Fairfax, Mrs. Washington's brother, had married
a Miss Cary, and thus two large and agreeable
family connections were thrown open to the young
surveyor when he emerged from school. The chief
figure, however, in that pleasant winter of 1747-
48, so far as an influence upon the character of
Washington is concerned, was the head of the
family into which Lawrence Washington had mar-
ried. Thomas, Lord Fairfax, then sixty years of
age, had come to Virginia to live upon and look
after the kingdom which he had inherited in the
wilderness. He came oi a noble and distinguished
race. Graduating at Oxford with credit, he served
in the army, dabbled in literature, had his fling
in the London world, and was jilted by a beauty
who preferred a duke, and gave her faithful but
less titled lover an apparently incurable wound.
His life having been thus early twisted and set
awry, Lord Fairfax, when well past his prime,
had determined finally to come to Virginia, bury
himself in the forests, and look after the almost
limitless possessions beyond the Blue Ridge, which
he had inherited from his maternal grandfather,
Lord Culpeper, of unsavory Restoration memory.
It was a piece of great good-fortune which threw
in Washington's path this accomplished gentle-
man, familiar with courts and camps, disappointed,
but not morose, disillusioned, but still kindly and
generous. From him the boy could gain that
knowledge of men and manners which no school

56 GEORGE WASHINGTON

can give, and which is as important in its way
as any that a teacher can impart.

Lord Fairfax and Washington became fast
friends. They hunted the fox together, and
hunted him hard. They engaged in all the rough
sports and perilous excitements which Virginia
winter life could afford, and the boy's bold and
skillful riding, his love of sports and his fine
temper, commended him to the warm and affec-
tionate interest of the old nobleman. Other quali-
ties, too, the experienced man of the world saw
in his young companion: a high and persistent
courage, robust and calm sense, and, above all,
unusual force of will and character. Washington
impressed profoundly everybody with whom he
was brought into personal contact, a fact which is
one of the most marked features of his character
and career, and one which deserves study more
than almost any other. Lord Fairfax was no
exception to the rule. He saw in Washington
not simply a promising, brave, open-hearted boy,
diligent in practicing his profession, and whom he
was anxious to help, but something more; some-
thing which so impressed him that he confided to
this lad a task which, according to its performance,
would affect both his fortune and his peace. In
a word, he trusted Washington, and told him, as
the spring of 1748 was opening, to go forth and
survey the vast Fairfax estates beyond the Kidge,
define their boundaries, and save them from future
litigation. With this commission from Lord Fair-

ON THE FRONTIER 57

fax, Washington entered on the first period of his
career. He passed it on the frontier, fighting
nature, the Indians, and the French. He went in
a schoolboy; he came out the first soldier in the
colonies, and one of the leading men of Virginia.
Let us pause a moment and look at him as he
stands on the threshold of this momentous period,
rightly called momentous because it was the for-
mative period in the life of such a man.

He had just passed his sixteenth birthday. He
was tall and muscular, approaching the stature of
more than six feet which he afterwards attained.
He was not yet filled out to manly proportions,
but was rather spare, after the fashion of youth.
He had a well-shaped, active figure, symmetrical
except for the unusual length of the arms, indicat-
ing uncommon strength. His light brown hair
was drawn back from a broad forehead, and gray-
ish-blue eyes looked happily, and perhaps a trifle
soberly, on the pleasant Virginia world about him.
The face was open and manly, with a square,
massive jaw, and a general expression of calmness
and strength. "Fair and florid," big and strong,
he was, take him for all in all, as fine a specimen
of his race as could be found in the English colo-
nies.

Let us look a little closer through the keen eyes
of one who studied many faces to good purpose.
The great painter of portraits, Gilbert Stuart,
tells us of Washington that he never saw in any
man such large eye-sockets, or such a breadth of

58 GEORGE WASHINGTON

nose and forehead between the eyes, and that he
read there the evidences of the strongest passions
possible to human nature. John Bernard the
actor, a good observer, too, saw in Washington's
face, in 1797, the signs of an habitual conflict and
mastery of passions, witnessed by the compressed
mouth and deeply indented brow. The problem
had been solved then; but in 1748, passion and
will alike slumbered, and no man could tell which
would prevail, or whether they would work to-
gether to great purpose or go jarring on to no-
thingness. He rises up to us out of the past in
that early springtime a fine, handsome, athletic
boy, beloved by those about him, who found him
a charming companion and did not guess that he
might be a terribly dangerous foe. He rises up
instinct with life and strength, a being capable, as
we know, of great things whether for good or evil,
with hot blood pulsing in his veins and beating in
his heart, with violent passions and relentless will
still undeveloped; and no one in all that jolly,
generous Virginian society even dimly dreamed
what that development would be, or what it would
mean to the world.

It was in March, 1748, that George Fairfax
and Washington set forth on their adventures,
and passing through Ashby's Gap .in the Blue
Ridge, entered the valley of Virginia. Thence
they worked their way up the valley of the Shen-
andoah, surveying as they went, returned and
swam the swollen Potomac, surveyed the lands

ON THE FRONTIER 59

about its south branch and in the mountainous
region of Frederick County, and finally reached
Mount Vernon again on April 12. It was a
rough experience for a beginner, but a wholesome
one, and furnished the usual vicissitudes of fron-
tier life. They were wet, cold, and hungry, or
warm, dry, and well fed, by turns. They slept in
a tent, or the huts of the scattered settlers, and
oftener still beneath the stars. They met a war
party of Indians, and having plied them with
liquor, watched one of their mad dances round
the camp-fire. In another place they came on a
straggling settlement of Germans, dull, patient,
and illiterate, strangely unfit for the life of the
wilderness. All these things, as well as the pro-
gress of their work and their various resting-places,
Washington noted down briefly but methodically
in a diary, showing in these rough notes the first
evidences of that keen observation of nature and
men and of daily incidents which he developed to
such good purpose in after-life. There are no
rhapsodies and no reflections in these hasty jot-
tings, but the employments and the discomforts
are all set down in a simple and matter-of-fact
way, which omitted no essential thing and ex-
cluded all that was worthless. His work, too,
was well done, and Lord Fairfax was so much
pleased by the report that he moved across the
Blue Ridge, built a hunting lodge preparatory
to something more splendid which never came to
pass, and laid out a noble manor, to which he

60 GEORGE WASHINGTON

gave the name of Greenway Court. He also pro-
cured for Washington an appointment as a public
surveyor, which conferred authority on his sur-
veys and provided him with regular work. Thus
started, Washington toiled at his profession for
three years, living and working as he did on his
first expedition. It was a rough life, but a manly
and robust one, and the men who live it, although
often rude and coarse, are never weak or effemi-
nate. To Washington it was an admirable school.
It strengthened his muscles and hardened him to
exposure and fatigue. It accustomed him to risks
and perils of various kinds, and made him fertile
in expedients and confident of himself, while the
nature of his work rendered him careful and in-
dustrious. That his work was well done is shown
by the fact that his surveys were considered of the
first authority, and stand unquestioned to this day,
like certain other work which he was subsequently
called to do. It was part of his character, when
he did anything, to do it in a lasting fashion, and
it is worth while to remember that the surveys he
made as a boy were the best that could be made.

He wrote to a friend at this time : " Since you
received my letter of October last, I have not
slept above three or four nights in a bed, but,
after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain
down before the fire upon a little hay, straw, fod-
der, or a bearskin, whichever was to be had, with
man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and
happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire.

ON THE FRONTIER 61

Nothing would make it pass off tolerably but a
good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain
every day that the weather will permit of my
going out, and sometimes six pistoles." He was
evidently a thrifty lad, and honestly pleased with
honest earnings. He was no mere adventurous
wanderer, but a man working for results in
money, reputation, or some solid value, and while
he worked and earned he kept an observant eye
upon the wilderness, and bought up when he could
the best land for himself and his family, laying
the foundations of the great landed estate of which
he died possessed.

There was also a lighter and pleasanter side to
this hard-working existence, which was quite as
useful, and more attractive, than toiling in the
woods and mountains. The young surveyor passed
much of his time at Greenway Court, hunting the
fox and rejoicing in all field sports which held
high place in that kingdom, while at the same
time he profited much in graver fashion by his
friendship with such a man as Lord Fairfax.
There, too, he had a chance at a library, and his
diaries show that he read carefully the history of
England and the essays of the " Spectator. " Nei-
ther in early days nor at any other time was he
a student, for he had few opportunities, and his
life from the beginning was out of doors and
among men. But the idea sometimes put forward
that Washington cared nothing for reading or for
books is an idle one. He read at Greenway Court

62 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and everywhere else when he had an opportunity.
He read well, too, and to some purpose, studying
men and events in books as he did in the world,
for though he never talked of his reading, preserv-
ing silence on that as on other things concerning
himself, no one ever was able to record an instance
in which he showed himself ignorant of history or
of literature. He was never a learned man, but
so far as his own language could carry him he was
an educated one. Thus while he developed the
sterner qualities by hard work and a rough life,
he did not bring back the coarse habits of the
backwoods and the camp-fire, but was able to
refine his manners and improve his mind in the
excellent society and under the hospitable roof of
Lord Fairfax.

Three years slipped by, and then a domestic
change came which much affected Washington's
whole life. The Carthagena campaign had under-
mined the strength of Lawrence Washington and
sown the seeds of consumption, which showed
itself in 1749, and became steadily more alarm-
ing. A voyage to England and a summer at
the warm springs were tried without success, and
finally, as a last resort, the invalid sailed for the
West Indies, in September, 1751. Thither his
brother George accompanied him, and we have
the fragments of a diary kept during this first
and last wandering outside his native country.
He copied the log, noted the weather, and evi-
dently strove to get some idea of nautical matters

ON THE FRONTIER 63

while he was at sea and leading a life strangely-
unfamiliar to a woodsman and pioneer. When
they arrived at their destination they were imme-
diately asked to breakfast and dine with Major
Clarke, the military magnate of the place, and
our young Virginian remarked, with characteristic
prudence and a certain touch of grim humor,
" We went, — myself with some reluctance, as
the smallpox was in the family." He fell a victim
to his good manners, for two weeks later he was
"strongly attacked with the smallpox," and was
then housed for a month, getting safely and suc-
cessfully through this dangerous and then almost
universal ordeal. Before the disease declared it-
self, however, he went about everywhere, inno-
cently scattering infection, and greatly enjoying
the pleasures of the island. It is to be regretted
that any part of this diary should have been
lost, for it is pleasant reading, and exhibits the
writer in an agreeable and characteristic fashion.
He commented on the country and the scenery, in-
veighed against the extravagance of the charges for
board and lodging, told of his dinner-parties and
his friends, and noted the marvelous abundance
and variety of the tropical fruits, which contrasted
strangely with the British dishes of beefsteak and
tripe. He also mentioned being treated to a
ticket to see the play of "George Barnwell," on
which he offered this cautious criticism: "The
character of Barnwell and several others were said
to be well performed. There was music adapted
and regularly conducted."

64 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Soon after his recovery Washington returned
to Virginia, arriving there in February, 1752.
The diary concluded with a brief but perfectly
effective description of Barbadoes, touching on
its resources and scenery, its government and con-
dition, and the manners and customs of its in-
habitants. All through these notes we find the
keenly observant spirit, and the evidence of a
mind constantly alert to learn. We see also a
pleasant, happy temperament, enjoying with hearty
zest all the pleasures that youth and life could
furnish. He who wrote these lines was evidently
a vigorous, good-humored young fellow, with a
quick eye for the world opening before him, and
for the delights as well as the instruction which
it offered.

From the sunshine and ease of this tropical
winter Washington passed to a long season of
trial and responsibility at home and abroad. In
July, 1752, his much -loved brother Lawrence
died, leaving George guardian of his daughter,
and heir to his estates in the event of that daugh-
ter's death. Thus the current of his home life
changed, and responsibility came into it, while
outside the mighty stream of public events changed
too, and swept him along in the swelling torrent
of a world-wide war.

In all the vast wilderness beyond the mountains
there was not room for both French and Eng-
lish. The rival nations had been for years slowly
approaching each other, until in 1749 each peo-

ON THE FRONTIER 65

pie proceeded at last to take possession of the
Ohio country after its own fashion. The French
sent a military expedition which sank and nailed
up leaden plates ; the English formed a great land
company to speculate and make money, and both
set diligently to work to form Indian alliances.
A man of far less perception than Lawrence Wash-
ington, who had become the chief manager of the
Ohio Company, would have seen that the condi-
tions on the frontier rendered war inevitable, and
he accordingly made ready for the future by pre-
paring his brother for the career of a soldier, so
far as it could be done. He brought to Mount
Vernon two old companions-in-arms of the Car-
thagena time, Adjutant Muse, a Virginian, and
Jacob Van Braam, a Dutch soldier of fortune.
The former instructed Washington in the art of
war, tactics, and the manual of arms, the latter
in fencing and the sword exercise. At the same
time Lawrence Washington procured for his bro-
ther, then only nineteen years of age, an appoint-
ment as one of the adjutants-general of Virginia,
with the rank of major. To all this the young
surveyor took kindly enough so far as we can tell,
but his military avocations were interrupted by
his voyage to Barbadoes, by the illness and death
of his brother, and by the cares and responsibili-
ties thereby thrust upon him.

Meantime the French aggressions had contin-
ued, and French soldiers and traders were work-
ing their way up from the South and down from

66 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the North, bullying and cajoling the Indians by
turns, taking possession of the Ohio country, and
selecting places as they went for that chain of
forts which was to hem in and slowly strangle
the English settlements. Governor Dinwiddie
had sent a commissioner to remonstrate against
these encroachments, but his envoy had stopped
a hundred and fifty miles short of the French
posts, alarmed by the troublous condition of things,
and by the defeat and slaughter which the French-
men had already inflicted upon the Indians. Some
more vigorous person was evidently needed to go
through the form of warning France not to tres-
pass on the English wilderness, and thereupon
Governor Dinwiddie selected for the task George
Washington, recently reappointed adjutant-general
of the northern division, and major in the Vir-
ginian forces. He was a young man for such an
undertaking, not yet twenty-two, but clearly of
good reputation. It is plain enough that Lord
Fairfax and others had said to the governor,
"Here is the very man for you; young, daring,
and adventurous, but yet sober-minded and re-
sponsible, who only lacks opportunity to show the
stuff that is in him."

Thus, then, in October, 1753, Washington set
forth with Van Braam, and various servants and
horses, accompanied by the boldest of Virginian
frontiersmen, Christopher Gist. He wrote a re-
port in the form of a journal, which was sent to
England and much read at the time as part of the

ON THE FRONTIER 67

news of the day, and which has an equal although
different interest now. It is a succinct, clear,
and sober narrative. The little party was formed
at Will's Creek, and thence through woods and
over swollen rivers made its way to Logstown.
Here they spent some days among the Indians,
whose leaders Washington got within his grasp
after much speech-making; and here, too, he met
some French deserters from the South, and drew
from them all the knowledge they possessed of New
Orleans and the military expeditions from that
region. From Logstown he pushed on, accom-
panied by his Indian chiefs, to Venango, on the
Ohio, the first French outpost. The French offi-
cers asked him to sup with them. The wine
flowed freely, the tongues of the hosts were loos-
ened, and the young Virginian, temperate and
hard-headed, listened to all the conversation, and
noted down mentally much that was interesting
and valuable. The next morning the Indian chiefs,
prudently kept in the background, appeared, and
a struggle ensued between the talkative, clever
Frenchmen and the quiet, persistent Virginian,
over the possession of these important savages.
Finally Washington got off, carrying his chiefs
with him, and made his way seventy miles further
to the fort on French Creek. Here he delivered
the governor's letter, and while M. de St. Pierre
wrote a vague and polite answer, he sketched the
fort and informed himself in regard to the mili-
tary condition of the post. Then came another

68 GEORGE WASHINGTON

struggle over the Indians, and finally Washington
got off with them once more, and worked his way
back to Venango. Another struggle for the sav-
ages followed, rum being always the principal
factor in the negotiation, and at last the chiefs
determined to stay behind. Nevertheless, the work
had been well done, and the important Half -King
remained true to the English cause.

Leaving his horses, Washington and Gist then
took to the woods on foot. The French Indians
lay in wait for them and tried to murder them,
and Gist, like a true frontiersman, was for shoot-
ing the scoundrel whom they captured. But Wash-
ington stayed his hand, and they gave the savage
the slip and pressed on. It was the middle of
December, very cold and stormy. In crossing a
river, Washington fell from the raft into deep
water, amid the floating ice, but fought his way
out, and he and his companion passed the night
on an island, with their clothes frozen upon them.
So through peril and privation, and various dan-
gers, stopping in the midst of it all to win another
savage potentate, they reached the edge of the
settlements and thence went on to Williamsburg,
where great praise and glory were awarded to the
youthful envoy, the hero of the hour in the little
Virginia capital.

It is worth while to pause over this expedition
a moment and to consider attentively this journal
which recounts it, for there are very few incidents
or documents which tell us more of Washington.

ON THE FRONTIER 69

He was not yet twenty-two when he faced this
first grave responsibility, and he did his work
absolutely well. Cool courage, of course, he
showed, but also patience and wisdom in handling
the Indians, a clear sense that the crafty and
well-trained Frenchmen could not blind, and a
strong faculty for dealing with men, always a rare
and precious gift. As in the little Barbadoes
diary, so also in this journal, we see, and far
more strongly, the penetration and perception that
nothing could escape, and which set down all
things essential and let the "huddling silver, little
worth," go by. The clearness, terseness, and en-
tire sufficiency of the narrative are obvious and
lie on the surface ; but we find also another qual-
ity of the man which is one of the most marked
features in his character, and one which we must
dwell upon again and again, as we follow the story
of his life. Here it is that we learn directly for
the first time that Washington was a profoundly
silent man. The gospel of silence has been preached
in these latter days by Carlyle, with the fervor of
a seer and prophet, and the world owes him a
debt for the historical discredit which he has
brought upon the man of mere words as compared
with the man of deeds. Carlyle brushed Wash-
ington aside as "a bloodless Cromwell," a phrase
to which we must revert later on other grounds,
and, as has already been said, failed utterly to
see that he was the most supremely silent of the
great men of action that the world can show.

70 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Like Cromwell and Frederic, Washington wrote
countless letters, made many speeches, and was
agreeable in conversation. But this was all in
the way of business, and a man may be profoundly
silent and yet talk a great deal. Silence in the
fine and true sense is neither mere holding of the
tongue nor an incapacity of expression. The
greatly silent man is he who is not given to words
for their own sake, and who never talks about
himself. Both Cromwell, greatest of Englishmen,
and the great Frederic, Carlyle's especial heroes,
were fond of talking of themselves. So in still
larger measure was Napoleon, and many others of
less importance. But Washington differs from
them all. He had abundant power of words, and
could use them with much force and point when
he was so minded, but he never used them need-
lessly or to hide his meaning, and he never talked
about himself. Hence the inestimable difficulty
of knowing him. A brief sentence here and there,
a rare gleam of light across the page of a letter,
is all that we can find. The rest is silence. He
did as great work as has fallen to the lot of man,
he wrote volumes of correspondence, he talked
with innumerable men and women, and of himself
he said nothing. Here in this youthful journal
we have a narrative of wild adventure, wily diplo-
macy, and personal peril, impossible of condensa-
tion, and yet not a word of the writer's thoughts
or feelings. All that was done or said important
to the business in hand was set down, and nothing

ON THE FRONTIER 71

was overlooked, but that is all. The work was
done, and we know how it was done, but the man
is silent as to all else. Here, indeed, is the man
of action and of real silence, a character to be
much admired and wondered at in these or any
other days.

Washington's report looked like war, and its
author was shortly afterwards appointed lieuten-
ant-colonel of a Virginian regiment, Colonel Fry
commanding. Now began that long experience
of human stupidity and inefficiency with which
Washington was destined to struggle through all
the years of his military career, suffering from
them, and triumphing in spite of them to a degree
unequaled by any other great commander. Din-
widdie, the Scotch governor, was eager enough to
fight, and full of energy and good intentions, but
he was hasty and not overwise, and was filled
with an excessive idea of his prerogatives. The
assembly, on its side, was sufficiently patriotic,
but its members came from a community which
for more than half a century had had no fighting,
and they knew nothing of war or its necessities.
Unaccustomed to the large affairs into which they
were suddenly plunged, they displayed a narrow
and provincial spirit. Keenly alive to their own
rights and privileges, they were more occupied in
quarreling with Dinwiddie than in prosecuting
the war. In the weak proprietary governments
of Maryland and Pennsylvania there was the same
condition of affairs, with every evil exaggerated

72 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tenfold. The fighting spirit was dominant in Vir-
ginia, but in Quaker-ridden Pennsylvania it seems
to have been almost extinct. These three were
not very promising communities to look to for
support in a difficult and costly war.

With all this inertia and stupidity Washington
was called to cope, and he rebelled against it in
vigorous fashion. Leaving Colonel Fry to follow
with the main body of troops, Washington set
out on April 2, 1754, with two companies from
Alexandria, where he had been recruiting amidst
most irritating difficulties. He reached Will's
Creek three weeks later ; and then his real troubles
began. Captain Trent, the timid and halting
envoy, who had failed to reach the French, had
been sent out by the wise authorities to build a
fort at the junction of the Alleghany and Monon-
gahela, on the admirable site selected by the keen
eye of Washington. There Trent left his men
and returned to Will's Creek, where Washington
found him, but without the pack-horses that he
had promised to provide. Presently news came
that the French in overwhelming numbers had
swept down upon Trent's little party, captured
their fort, and sent them packing back to Vir-
ginia. Washington took this to be war, and de-
termined at once to march against the enemy.
Having impressed from the inhabitants, who were
not bubbling over with patriotism, some horses
and wagons, he set out on his toilsome march
across the mountains.

ON THE FRONTIER 73

It was a wild and desolate region, and progress
was extremely slow. By May 9 he was at the
Little Meadows, twenty miles from his starting-
place; by the 18th at the Youghiogany River,
which he explored and found unnavigable. He
was therefore forced to take up his weary march
again for the Monongahela, and by the 27th he
was at the Great Meadows, a few miles further
on. The extreme danger of his position does not
seem to have occurred to him, but he was harassed
and angered by the conduct of the assembly. He
wrote to Governor Dinwiddie that he had no idea
of giving up his commission. "But," he contin-
ued, "let me serve voluntarily; then I will, with
the greatest pleasure in life, devote my services
to the expedition, without any other reward than
the satisfaction of serving my country; but to be
slaving dangerously for the shadow of pay, through
woods, rocks, mountains, — I would rather prefer
the great toil of a daily laborer, and dig for a
maintenance, provided I were reduced to the ne-
cessity, than serve upon such ignoble terms; for
I really do not see why the lives of his Majesty's
subjects in Virginia should be of less value than
those in other parts of his American dominions,
especially when it is well known that we must
undergo double their hardship." Here we have
a high-spirited, high-tempered young gentleman,
with a contempt for shams that it is pleasant to
see, and evidently endowed also with a fine taste
for fighting and not too much patience.

74 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Indignant letters written in vigorous language
were, however, of little avail, and Washington
prepared to shift for himself as best he might.
His Indian allies brought him news that the
French were on the march and had thrown out
scouting parties. Picking out a place in the Great
Meadows for a fort, "a charming field for an
encounter," he in his turn sent out a scouting
party, and then on fresh intelligence from the
Indians set forth himself with forty men to find
the enemy. After a toilsome march they discov-
ered their foes in camp. The French, surprised
and surrounded, sprang to arms, the Virginians
fired, there was a sharp exchange of shots, and all
was over. Ten of the French were killed and
twenty-one were taken prisoners, only one of the
party escaping to carry back the news.

This little skirmish made a prodigious noise in
its day, and was much heralded in France. The
French declared that Jumonville, the leader, who
fell at the first fire, was foully assassinated, and
that he and his party were ambassadors and sacred
characters. Paris rang with this fresh instance
of British perfidy, and a M. Thomas celebrated
the luckless Jumonville in a solemn epic poem in
four books. French historians, relying on the
account of the Canadian who escaped, adopted the
same tone, and at a later day mourned over this
black spot on Washington's character. The French
view was simple nonsense. Jumonville and his
party, as the papers found on Jumonville showed,

ON THE FRONTIER 75

were out on a spying and scouting expedition.
They were seeking to surprise the English when
the English surprised them, with the usual back-
woods result. The affair has a dramatic interest
because it was the first blood shed in a great
struggle, and was the beginning of a series of
world-wide wars and social and political convul-
sions, which terminated more than half a century
later on the plains of Waterloo. It gave immor-
tality to an obscure French officer by linking his
name with that of his opponent, and brought
Washington for the moment before the eyes of
the world, which little dreamed that this Virginian
colonel was destined to be one of the principal
figures in the great revolutionary drama to which
the war then beginning was but the prologue.

Washington, for his part, well satisfied with
his exploit, retraced his steps, and having sent
his prisoners back to Virginia, proceeded to con-
sider his situation. It was not a very cheerful
prospect. Contrecceur, with the main body of
the French and Indians, was moving down from
the Monongahela a thousand strong. This of
course was to have been anticipated, and it does
not seem to have in the least damped Washing-
ton's spirits. His blood was up, his fighting tem-
per thoroughly roused, and he prepared to push
on. Colonel Fry had died meanwhile, leaving
Washington in command; but his troops came
forward, and also not long after a useless "inde-
pendent" company from South Carolina. Thus

76 GEORGE WASHINGTON

reinforced Washington advanced painfully some
thirteen miles, and then receiving sure intelligence
of the approach of the French in great force fell
back with difficulty to the Great Meadows, where
he was obliged by the exhausted condition of his
men to stop. He at once resumed work on Fort
Necessity, and made ready for a desperate defense,
for the French were on his heels, and on July 3
appeared at the Meadows. Washington offered
battle outside the fort, and this being declined
withdrew to his trenches, and skirmishing went
on all day. When night fell it was apparent that
the end had come. The men were starved and
worn out. Their muskets in many cases were
rendered useless by the rain, and their ammunition
was spent. The Indians had deserted, and the
foe outnumbered them four to one. When the
French therefore offered a parley, Washington
was forced reluctantly to accept. The French had
no stomach for the fight, apparently, and allowed
the English to go with their arms, exacting no-
thing but a pledge that for a year they would not
come to the Ohio.

So ended Washington's first campaign. His
friend the Half -King, the celebrated Seneca chief,
Thanacarishon, who prudently departed on the
arrival of the French, has left us a candid opinion
of Washington and his opponents. "The colo-
nel," he said, "was a good-natured man, but had
no experience; he took upon him to command
the Indians as his slaves, and would have them

ON THE FRONTIER 77

every day upon the scout and to attack the enemy
by themselves, but would by no means take advice
from the Indians. He lay in one place from one
full moon to the other, without making any forti-
fications, except that little thing on the meadow;
whereas, had he taken advice, and built such
fortifications as I advised him, he might easily
have beat off the French. But the French in the
engagement acted like cowards, and the English
like fools."1

There is a deal of truth in this opinion. The
whole expedition was rash in the extreme. When
Washington left Will's Creek he was aware that
he was going to meet a force of a thousand men
with only a hundred and fifty raw recruits at his
back. In the same spirit he pushed on; and
after the Jumonville affair, although he knew that
the wilderness about him was swarming with ene-
mies, he still struggled forward. When forced
to retreat he made a stand at the Meadows and
offered battle in the open to his more numerous
and more prudent foes, for he was one of those
men who by nature regard courage as a substitute
for everything, and who have a contempt for hos-
tile odds. He was ready to meet any number of
French and Indians with cheerful confidence and
with real pleasure. He wrote, in a letter which
soon became famous, that he loved to hear bullets

1 Enquiry into the Causes and Alienations of the Delaware and
Shawanee Indians, etc. London, 1759. By Charles Thomson,
afterwards Secretary of Congress.

78 GEORGE WASHINGTON

whistle, a sage observation which he set down in
later years as a folly of youth. Yet this boyish
outburst, foolish as it was, has a meaning to us,
for it was essentially true. Washington had the
fierce fighting temper of the Northmen. He loved
battle and danger, and he never ceased to love
them and to give way to their excitement, although
he did not again set down such sentiments in
boastful phrase that made the world laugh. Men
of such temper, moreover, are naturally imperious
and have a fine disregard of consequences, with
the result that their allies, Indian or otherwise,
often become impatient and finally useless. The
campaign was perfectly wild from the outset, and
if it had not been for the utter indifference to
danger displayed by Washington, and the conse-
quent timidity of the French, that particular body
of Virginians would have been permanently lost to
the British Empire.

But we learn from all this many things. It
appears that Washington was not merely a brave
man, but one who loved fighting for its own sake.
The whole expedition shows an arbitrary temper
and the most reckless courage, valuable qualities,
but here unrestrained, and mixed with very little
prudence. Some important lessons were learned
by Washington from the rough teachings of inex-
orable and unconquerable facts. He received in
this campaign the first taste of that severe experi-
ence which by its training developed the self-con-
trol and mastery of temper for which he became

ON THE FRONTIER 79

so remarkable. He did not spring into life a
perfect and impossible man, as is so often repre-
sented. On the contrary, he was educated by
circumstances; but the metal came out of the
furnace of experience finely tempered, because it
was by nature of the best and with but little dross
to be purged away. In addition to all this he
acquired for the moment what would now be
called a European reputation. He was known in
Paris as an assassin, and in England, thanks to
the bullet letter, as a "fanfaron " and brave brag-
gart. With these results he wended his way home
much depressed in spirits, but not in the least
discouraged, and fonder of fighting than ever.

Virginia, however, took a kinder view of the
campaign than did her defeated soldier. She ap-
preciated the gallantry of the offer to fight in the
open and the general conduct of the troops, and
her House of Burgesses passed a vote of thanks to
Washington and his officers, and gave money to
his men. In August he rejoined his regiment,
only to renew the vain struggle against incompe-
tence and extravagance, and as if this were not
enough, his sense of honor was wounded and his
temper much irritated by the governor's playing
false to the prisoners taken in the Jumonville
fight. While thus engaged, news came that the
French were off their guard at Fort Duquesne,
and Dinwiddie was for having the regiment of
undisciplined troops march again into the wilder-
ness. Washington, however, had learned some-

80 GEORGE WASHINGTON

thing, if not a great deal, and he demonstrated
the folly of such an attempt in a manner too clear
to be confuted.

Meantime the Burgesses came together, and
more money being voted, Dinwiddie hit on a nota-
ble plan for quieting dissensions between regulars
and provincials by dividing all the troops into
independent companies, with no officer higher than
a captain. Washington, the only officer who had
seen fighting and led a regiment, resented quite
properly this senseless policy, and resigning his
commission withdrew to Mount Vernon to manage
the estate and attend to his own affairs. He was
driven to this course still more strongly by the
original cause of Dinwiddie 's arrangement. The
English government had issued an order that offi-
cers holding the king's commission should rank
provincial officers, and that provincial generals
and field officers should have no rank when a gen-
eral or field officer holding a royal commission
was present. The degradation of being ranked
by every whipper-snapper who might hold a royal
commission by virtue, perhaps, of being the bas-
tard son of some nobleman's cast-off mistress was
more than the temper of George Washington at
least could bear, and when Governor Sharpe, gen-
eral by the king's commission, and eager to se-
cure the services of the best fighter in Virginia,
offered him a company and urged his acceptance,
he replied in language that must have somewhat
astonished his excellency. "You make mention in

ON THE FRONTIER 81

your letter," he wrote to Colonel Fitzhugh, Gov-
ernor Sharpe's second in command, "of my con-
tinuing in the service, and retaining my colonel's
commission. This idea has filled me with sur-
prise; for, if you think me capable of holding a
commission that has neither rank nor emolument
annexed to it, you must entertain a very contempt-
ible opinion of my weakness, and believe me to
be more empty than the commission itself. . . .
In short, every captain bearing the king's com-
mission, every half -pay officer, or others appearing
with such a commission, would rank before me.
. . . Yet my inclinations are strongly bent to
arms."

It was a bitter disappointment to withdraw
from military life, but Washington had an intense
sense of personal dignity; not the small vanity of
a petty mind, but the quality of a proud man con-
scious of his own strength and purpose. It was
of immense value to the American people at a
later day, and there is something very instructive
in this early revolt against the stupid arrogance
which England has always thought it wise to dis-
play toward this country. She has paid dearly
for indulging it, but it has seldom cost her more
than when it drove Washington from her service,
and left in his mind a sense of indignity and in-
justice.

Meantime this Virginian campaigning had
started a great movement. England was aroused,
and it was determined to assail France in Nova

82 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Scotia, from New York and on the Ohio. In
accordance with this plan General Braddock ar-
rived in Virginia February 20, 1755, with two
picked regiments, and encamped at Alexandria.
Thither Washington used to ride and look long-
ingly at the pomp and glitter, and wish that he
were engaged in the service. Presently this de-
sire became known, and Braddock, hearing of
the young Virginian's past experience, offered
him a place on his staff with the rank of colonel
where he would be subject only to the orders of
the general, and could serve as a volunteer. He
therefore accepted at once, and threw himself into
his new duties with hearty good-will. Every step
now was full of instruction. At Annapolis he
met the governors of the other colonies, and was
interested and attracted by this association with
distinguished public men. In the army to which
he was attached he studied with the deepest atten-
tion the best discipline of Europe, observing every-
thing and forgetting nothing, thus preparing him-
self unconsciously to use against his teachers the
knowledge he acquired.

He also made warm friends with the English
officers, and was treated with consideration by his
commander. The universal practice of all Eng-
lishmen at that time was to behave contemptuously
to the colonists, but there was something about
Washington which made this impossible. They
all treated him with the utmost courtesy, vaguely
conscious that beneath the pleasant, quiet manner

ON THE FRONTIER 83

there was a strength of character and ability such
as is rarely found, and that this was a man whom
it was unsafe to affront. There is no stronger
instance of Washington's power of impressing
himself upon others than that he commanded now
the respect and affection of his general, who was
the last man to be easily or favorably affected by
a young provincial officer.

Edward Braddock was a veteran soldier, a skilled
disciplinarian, and a rigid martinet. He was
narrow-minded, brutal, and brave. He had led
a fast life in society, indulging in coarse and vio-
lent dissipations, and was proud with the intense
pride of a limited intelligence and a nature inca-
pable of physical fear. It would be difficult to
conceive of a man more unfit to be entrusted with
the task of marching through the wilderness and
sweeping the French from the Ohio. All the
conditions which confronted him were unfamiliar
and beyond his experience. He cordially despised
the provincials who were essential to his success,
and lost no opportunity of showing his contempt
for them. The colonists on their side, especially
in Pennsylvania, gave him, unfortunately, only
too much ground for irritation and disgust. They
were delighted to see this brilliant force come
from England to fight their battles, but they kept
on wrangling and holding back, refusing money
and supplies, and doing nothing. Braddock chafed
and delayed, swore angrily, and lingered still.
Washington strove to help him, but defended his

84 GEORGE WASHINGTON

country fearlessly against wholesale and furious
attacks.

Finally the army began to move, but so slowly
and after so much delay that they did not reach
Will's Creek until the middle of May. Here
came another exasperating pause, relieved only
by Franklin, who, by giving his own time, ability,
and money, supplied the necessary wagons. Then
they pushed on again, but with the utmost slow-
ness. With supreme difficulty they made an elab-
orate road over the mountains as they marched,
and did not reach the Little Meadows until June
16. Then at last Braddock turned to his young
aide for the counsel which had already been prof-
fered and rejected many times. Washington ad-
vised the division of the army, so that the main
body could hurry forward in light marching order
while a detachment remained behind and brought
up the heavy baggage. This plan was adopted,
and the army started forward, still too heavily
burdened, as Washington thought, but in some-
what better trim for the wilderness than before.
Their progress, quickened as it was, still seemed
slow to Washington, but he was taken ill with a
fever, and finally was compelled by Braddock to
stop for rest at the ford of Youghiogany. He
made Braddock promise that he should be brought
up before the army reached Fort Duquesne, and
wrote to his friend Orme that he would not miss
the impending battle for five hundred pounds.

As soon as his fever abated a little he left Colo-

ON THE FRONTIER 85

nel Dunbar, and, being unable to sit on a horse,
was conveyed to the front in a wagon, coming up
with the army on July 8. He was just in time,
for the next day the troops forded the Mononga-
hela and marched to attack the fort. The splen-
did appearance of the soldiers as they crossed the
river roused Washington's enthusiasm; but he was
not without misgivings. Franklin had already
warned Braddock against the danger of surprise,
and had been told with a sneer that while these
savages might be a formidable enemy to raw
American militia, they could make no impression
on disciplined troops. Now at the last moment
Washington warned the general again and was
angrily rebuked.

The troops marched on in ordered ranks, glit-
tering and beautiful. Suddenly firing was heard
in the front, and presently the van was flung
back on the main body. Yells and war-whoops
resounded on every side, and an unseen enemy
poured in a deadly fire. Washington begged
Braddock to throw his men into the woods, but
all in vain. Fight in platoons they must, or not
at all. The result was that they did not fight at
all. They became panic-stricken, and huddled
together, overcome with fear, until at last when
Braddock was mortally wounded they broke in
wild rout and fled. Of the regular troops, seven
hundred, and of the officers, who showed the ut-
most bravery, sixty-two out of eighty-six, were
killed or wounded. Two hundred Frenchmen and

86 GEORGE WASHINGTON

six hundred Indians achieved this signal victory.
The only thing that could be called fighting on
the English side was done by the Virginians, "the
raw American militia," who, spread out as skir-
mishers, met their foes on their own ground, and
were cut off after a desperate resistance almost
to a man.

Washington at the outset flung himself head-
long into the fight. He rode up and down the
field, carrying orders and striving to rally "the
dastards," as he afterwards called the regular
troops. He endeavored to bring up the artillery,
but the men would not serve the guns, although
to set an example he aimed and discharged one
himself. All through that dreadful carnage he
rode fiercely about, raging with the excitement of
battle, and utterly exposed from beginning to end.
Even now it makes the heart beat quicker to think
of him amid the smoke and slaughter as he dashed
hither and thither, his face glowing and his eyes
shining with the fierce light of battle, leading on
his own Virginians, and trying to stay the tide
of disaster. He had two horses shot under him
and four bullets through his coat. The Indians
thought he bore a charmed life, while his death
was reported in the colonies, together with his
dying speech, which, he dryly wrote to his bro-
ther, he had not yet composed.

When the troops broke it was Washington who
gathered the fugitives and brought off the dying
general. It was he who rode on to meet Dunbar,

ON THE FRONTIER 87

and rallying the fugitives enabled the wretched
remnants to take up their march for the settle-
ments. He it was who laid Braddock in the grave
four days after the defeat, and read over the dead
the solemn words of the English service. Wise,
sensible, and active in the advance, splendidly
reckless on the day of battle, cool and collected
on the retreat, Washington alone emerged from
that history of disaster with added glory. Again
he comes before us as, above all things, the fight-
ing man, hot-blooded and fierce in action, and
utterly indifferent to the danger which excited
and delighted him. But the earlier lesson had
not been useless. He now showed a prudence and
wisdom in counsel which were not apparent in the
first of his campaigns, and he no longer thought
that mere courage was all-sufficient, or that any
enemy could be despised. He was plainly one of
those who could learn. His first experience had
borne good fruit, and now he had been taught a
series of fresh and valuable lessons. Before his
eyes had been displayed the most brilliant Euro-
pean discipline, both in camp and on the march.
He had studied and absorbed it all, talking with
veterans and hearing from them many things that
he could have acquired nowhere else. Once more
had he been taught, in a way not to be forgotten,
that it is never well to underrate one's opponent.
He had looked deeper, too, and had seen what the
whole continent soon understood, that English
troops were not invincible, that they could be

88 GEORGE WASHINGTON

beaten by Indians, and that they were after all
much like other men. This was the knowledge,
fatal in after days to British supremacy, which
Braddock's defeat brought to Washington and
to the colonists, and which was never forgot-
ten. Could he have looked into the future, he
would have seen also in this ill-fated expedition an
epitome of much future history. The expedition
began with stupid contempt toward America and
all things American, and ended in ruin and de-
feat. It was a bitter experience, much heeded by
the colonists, but disregarded by England, whose
indifference was paid for at a heavy cost.

After the hasty retreat, Colonel Dunbar, stricken
with panic, fled onward to Philadelphia, abandon-
ing everything, and Virginia was left naturally in
a state of great alarm. The assembly came to-
gether, and at last, thoroughly frightened, voted
abundant money, and ordered a regiment of a
thousand men to be raised. Washington, who
had returned to Mount Vernon ill and worn-out,
was urged to solicit the command, but it was not
his way to solicit, and he declined to do so now.
August 14, he wrote to his mother : "If it is
in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I
shall; but if the command is pressed upon me
by the general voice of the country, and offered
upon such terms as cannot be objected against, it
would reflect dishonor on me to refuse it." The
same day he was offered the command of all the
Virginian forces on his own terms, and accepted.

ON THE FRONTIER 89

Virginia believed in Washington, and lie was
ready to obey her call.

He at once assumed command and betook him-
self to Winchester, a general without an army,
but still able to check by his presence the existing
panic, and ready to enter upon the trying, dreary,
and fruitless work that lay before him. In April,
1757, he wrote: "I have been posted then, for
more than twenty months past, upon our cold and
barren frontiers, to perform, I think I may say,
impossibilities; that is, to protect from the cruel
incursions of a crafty, savage enemy a line of in-
habitants, of more than three hundred and fifty
miles in extent, with a force inadequate to the
task." This terse statement covers all that can
be said of the next three years. It was a long
struggle against a savage foe in front, and nar-
rowness, jealousy, and stupidity behind; appar-
ently without any chance of effecting anything, or
gaining any glory or reward. Troops were voted,
but were raised with difficulty, and when raised
were neglected and ill-treated by the wrangling
governor and assembly, which caused much ill-
suppressed wrath in the breast of the commander-
in-chief, who labored day and night to bring about
better discipline in camp, and who wrote long
letters to Williamsburg recounting existing evils
and praying for a new militia law.

The troops, in fact, were got out with vast diffi-
culty even under the most stinging necessity, and
were almost worthless when they came. Of one

90 GEORGE WASHINGTON

"noble captain" who refused to come, Washing-
ton wrote : " With coolness and moderation this
great captain answered that his wife, family, and
corn were all at stake; so were those of his sol-
diers; therefore it was impossible for him to come.
Such is the example of the officers; such the be-
havior of the men; and upon such circumstances
depends the safety of our country!" But while
the soldiers were neglected, and the assembly
faltered, and the militia disobeyed, the French
and Indians kept at work on the long, exposed
frontier. There panic reigned, farmhouses and
villages went up in smoke, and the fields were
reddened with slaughter at each fresh incursion.
Gentlemen in Williamsburg bore these misfortunes
with reasonable fortitude, but Washington raged
against the abuses and the inaction, and vowed
that nothing but the imminent danger prevented
his resignation. "The supplicating tears of the
women," he wrote, "and moving petitions of the
men melt me into such deadly sorrow that I sol-
emnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could
offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering
enemy, provided that would contribute to the
people's ease." This is one of the rare flashes
of personal feeling which disclose the real man,
warm of heart and temper, full of human sympa-
thy, and giving vent to hot indignation in words
which still ring clear and strong across the century
that has come and gone.

Serious troubles, moreover, were complicated

ON THE FRONTIER 91

by petty annoyances. A Maryland captain, at
the head of thirty men, undertook to claim rank
over the Virginian commander-in-chief because he
had held a king's commission; and Washington
was obliged to travel to Boston in order to have
the miserable thing set right by Governor Shirley.
This affair settled, he returned to take up again
the old disheartening struggle, and his outspoken
condemnation of Dinwiddie's foolish schemes and
of the shortcomings of the government began to
raise up backbiters and malcontents at Williams-
burg. "My orders," he said, "are dark, doubt-
ful, and uncertain; to-day approved, to-morrow
condemned. Left to act and proceed at hazard,
accountable for the consequences, and blamed
without the benefit of defense." He determined
nevertheless to bear with his trials until the arrival
of Lord Loudon, the new commander-in-chief,
from whom he expected vigor and improvement.
Unfortunately he was destined to have only fresh
disappointment from the new general, for Lord
Loudon was merely one more incompetent man
added to the existing confusion. He paid no heed
to the South, matters continued to go badly in the
North, and Virginia was left helpless. So Wash-
ington toiled on with much discouragement, and
the disagreeable attacks upon him increased. That
it should have been so is not surprising, for he
wrote to the governor, who now held him in much
disfavor, to the speaker, and indeed to every one,
with a most galling plainness. He was only

92 GEORGE WASHINGTON

twenty-five, be it remembered, and his high tem-
per was by no means under perfect control. He
was anything but diplomatic at that period of his
life, and was far from patient, using language
with much sincerity and force, and indulging in a
blunt irony of rather a ferocious kind. When he
was accused finally of getting up reports of imagi-
nary dangers, his temper gave way entirely. He
wrote wrathfully to the governor for justice, and
added in a letter to his friend, Captain Peachey :
"As to Colonel C.'s gross and infamous reflections
on my conduct last spring, it will be needless, I
dare say, to observe further at this time than that
the liberty which he has been pleased to allow him-
self in sporting with my character is little else than
a comic entertainment, discovering at one view his
passionate fondness for your friend, his inviolable
love of truth, his unfathomable knowledge, and
the masterly strokes of his wisdom in displaying
it. You are heartily welcome to make use of any
letter or letters which I may at any time have
written to you ; for although I keep no copies of
epistles to my friends, nor can remember the con-
tents of all of them, yet I am sensible that the
narrations are just, and that truth and honesty
will appear in my writings ; of which, therefore, I
shall not be ashamed, though criticism may cen-
sure my style."

Perhaps a little more patience would have pro-
duced better results, but it is pleasant to find one
man, in that period of stupidity and incompetency,

ON THE FRONTIER 93

who was ready to free his mind in this refreshing
way. The only wonder is that he was not driven
from his command. That they insisted on keep-
ing him there shows beyond everything that he
had already impressed himself so strongly on Vir-
ginia that the authorities, although they smarted
under his attacks, did not dare to meddle with
him. Dinwiddie and the rest could foil him in ob-
taining a commission in the king's army, but they
could not shake his hold upon the people.

In the winter of 1758 his health broke down
completely. He was so ill that he thought that
his constitution was seriously injured; and there-
fore withdrew to Mount Vernon, where he slowly
recovered. Meantime a great man came at last to
the head of affairs in England, and, inspired by
William Pitt, fleets and armies went forth to con-
quer. Keviving at the prospect, Washington
offered his services to General Forbes, who had
come to undertake the task which Braddock had
failed to accomplish. Once more English troops
appeared, and a large army was gathered. Then
the old story began again, and Washington, whose
proffered aid had been gladly received, chafed and
worried all summer at the fresh spectacle of delay
and stupidity which was presented to him. His
advice was disregarded, and all the weary business
of building new roads through the wilderness was
once more undertaken. A detachment, sent for-
ward contrary to his views, met with the fate of
Braddock, and as the summer passed, and autumn

94 GEORGE WASHINGTON

changed to winter, it looked as if nothing would
be gained in return for so much toil and prepara-
tion. But Pitt had conquered the Ohio in Can-
ada, news arrived of the withdrawal of the French,
the army pressed on, and, with Washington in the
van, marched into the smoking ruins of Fort
Duquesne, henceforth to be known to the world
as Fort Pitt.

So closed the first period in Washington's pub-
lic career. We have seen him pass through it in
all its phases. It shows him as an adventurous
pioneer, as a reckless frontier fighter, and as a
soldier of great promise. He learned many things
in this time, and was taught much in the hard
school of adversity. In the effort to conquer
Frenchmen and Indians he studied the art of war,
and at the same time he learned to bear with and
to overcome the dullness and inefficiency of the
government he served. Thus he was forced to
practise self-control in order to attain his ends,
and to acquire skill in the management of men.
There could have been no better training for the
work he was to do in the after years, and the
future showed how deeply he profited by it. Let
us turn now, for a moment, to the softer and plea-
santer side of life, and having seen what Wash-
ington was, and what he did as a fighting man,
let us try to know him in the equally important
and far more attractive domain of private and
domestic life.

CHAPTER IV

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

Lewis Willis, of Fredericksburg, who was at
school with Washington, used to speak of him as
an unusually studious and industrious boy, but
recalled one occasion when he distinguished him-
self and surprised his schoolmates by "romping
with one of the largest girls."1 Half a century
later, when the days of romping were long over
and gone, a gentleman writing of a Mrs. Hartley,
whom Washington much admired, said that the
general always liked a fine woman.2 It is certain
that from romping he passed rapidly to more seri-
ous forms of expressing regarcl, for by the time he
was fourteen he had fallen deeply in love with
Mary Bland of Westmoreland, whom he calls his
"Lowland Beauty," and to whom he wrote various
copies of verses, preserved amid the notes of sur-
veys, in his diary for 1747-48. The old tradition
identified the "Lowland Beauty" with Miss Lucy
Grymes, perhaps correctly, and there are drafts of
letters addressed to "Dear Sally," which suggest

1 Quoted from the Willis MS. by Mr. Conway, in Magazine of
American History, March, 1887, p. 196.

2 Magazine of American History, i. 324.

96 GEORGE WASHINGTON

that the mistake in identification might have
arisen from the fact that there were several ladies
who answered to that description. In the follow-
ing sentence from the draft of a letter to a mascu-
line sympathizer, also preserved in the tell-tale
diary of 1748, there is certainly an indication
that the constancy of the lover was not perfect.
"Dear Friend Robin," he wrote: "My place of
residence at present is at his Lordship's, where
I might, were my heart disengaged, pass my time
very pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young
lady in the same house, Colonel George Fairfax's
wife's sister. But that only adds fuel to the fire,
as being often and unavoidably in company with
her revives my former passion for your Lowland
Beauty; whereas were I to live more retired from
young women, I might in some measure alleviate
my sorrow by burying that chaste and troublesome
passion in oblivion; I am very well assured that
this will be the only antidote or remedy." Our
gloomy young gentleman, however, did not take
to solitude to cure the pangs of despised love, but
proceded to calm his spirits by the society of this
same sister-in-law of George Fairfax, Miss Mary
Cary. One "Lowland Beauty," Lucy Grymes,
married Henry Lee, and became the mother of
"Legion Harry," a favorite officer and friend of
Washington in the Revolution, and the grand-
mother of Robert E. Lee, the great soldier of the
Southern Confederacy. The affair with Miss Cary
went on apparently for some years, fitfully pur-

t^4t04^/ <' ad

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 97

sued in the intervals of war and Indian fighting,
and interrupted also by matters of a more tender
nature. The first diversion occurred about 1752,
when we find Washington writing to William
Fauntleroy, at Richmond, that he proposed to
come to his house to see his sister, Miss Betsy,
and that he hoped for a revocation of her former
cruel sentence.1 Miss Betsy, however, seems to
have been obdurate, and we hear no more of love
affairs until much later, and then in connection
with matters of a graver sort.

When Captain Dagworthy, commanding thirty
men in the Maryland service, undertook in virtue
of a king's commission to outrank the commander-
in-chief of the Virginian forces, Washington made
up his mind that he would have this question at
least finally and properly settled. So, as has
been said, he went to Boston, saw Governor Shir-
ley, and had the dispute determined in his own
favor. He made the journey on horseback, and
had with him two of his aides and two servants.
An old letter, luckily preserved, tells us how he
looked, for it contains orders to his London agents
for various articles, sent for perhaps in anticipa-
tion of this very expedition. In Braddock's cam-
paign the young surveyor and frontier soldier had
been thrown among a party of dashing, hand-
somely equipped officers fresh from London, and
their appearance had engaged his careful attention.

1 Historical Magazine, 3d series, 1873. Letter communicated
by Fitzhugh Lee.

98 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington was a thoroughly simple man in all
ways, but he was also a man of taste and a lover
of military discipline. He had a keen sense of
appropriateness, a valuable faculty which stood
him in good stead in grave as well as trivial mat-
ters all through his career, and which in his youth
came out most strongly in the matter of manners
and personal appearance. He was a handsome
man, and liked to be well dressed and to have
everything about himself or his servants of the
best. Yet he was not a mere imitator of fashions
or devoted to fine clothes. The American leggins
and fringed hunting-shirt had a strong hold on his
affections, and he introduced them into Forbes 's
army, and again into the army of the Revolution,
as the best uniform for the backwoods fighters.
But he learned with Braddock that the dress of
parade has as real military value as that of ser-
vice, and when he traveled northward to settle
about Captain Dagworthy, he felt justly that he
now was going on parade for the first time as the
representative of his troops and his colony.
Therefore with excellent sense he dressed as be-
fitted the occasion, and at the same time gratified
his own taste.

Thanks to these precautions, the little cavalcade
that left Virginia on February 4, 1756, must have
looked brilliant enough as they rode away through
the dark woods. First came the colonel, mounted
of course on the finest of animals, for he loved and
understood horses from the time when he rode

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 99

bareback in the pasture to those later days when
he acted as judge at a horse-race and saw his own
pet colt "Magnolia" beaten. In this expedition
he wore, of course, his uniform of buff and blue,
with a white and scarlet cloak over his shoulders,
and a sword-knot of red and gold. His "horse
furniture " was of the best London make, trimmed
with "livery lace," and the Washington arms were
engraved upon the housings. Close by his side
rode his two aides, likewise in buff and blue, and
behind came his servants, dressed in the Washing-
ton colors of white and scarlet and wearing hats
laced with silver. Thus accoutred, they all rode
on together to the North.

The colonel's fame had gone before him, for the
hero of Braddock's stricken field and the com-
mander of the Virginian forces was known by
reputation throughout the colonies. Every door
flew open to him as he passed, and every one was
delighted to welcome the young soldier. He was
dined and wined and feted in Philadelphia, and
again in New York, where he fell in love at
apparently short notice with the heiress Mary
Philipse, the sister-in-law of his friend Beverly
Robinson. Tearing himself away from these
attractions he pushed on to Boston, then the most
important city on the continent, and the head-
quarters of Shirley, the commander-in-chief. The
little New England capital had at that time a
society which, rich for those days, was relieved
from its Puritan sombreness by the gayety and

100 GEORGE WASHINGTON

life brought in by the royal officers. Here Wash-
ington lingered ten days, talking war and politics
with the governor, visiting in state the "great and
general court," dancing every night at some ball,
dining with and being feted by the magnates of
the town. His business done, he returned to New
York, tarried there awhile for the sake of the fair
dame, but came to no conclusions, and then, like
the soldier in the song, he gave his bridle -rein a
shake and rode away again to the South, and to
the harassed and ravaged frontier of Virginia.

How much this little interlude, pushed into a
corner as it has been by the dignity of history, —
how much it tells of the real man! How the
statuesque myth and the priggish myth and the
dull and solemn myth melt away before it ! Wise
and strong, a bearer of heavy responsibility beyond
his years, daring in fight and sober in judgment,
we have here the other and the more human side
of Washington. One loves to picture that gal-
lant, generous, youthful figure, brilliant in color
and manly in form, riding gayly on from one little
colonial town to another, feasting, dancing, court-
ing, and making merry. For him the myrtle and
ivy were entwined with the laurel, and fame was
sweetened by youth. He was righteously ready to
draw from life all the good things which fate and
fortune then smiling upon him could offer, and he
took his pleasure frankly, with an honest heart.

We know that he succeeded in his mission and
put the captain of thirty men in his proper place,

JOS,

T^^ru <fo

trr t-tsd

'B&4A A/a /? y P/j/l/pse

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 101

but no one now can tell how deeply lie was affected
by the charms of Miss Philipse. The only certain
fact is that he was able not long after to console
himself very effectually. Riding away from
Mount Vernon once more, in the spring of 1758,
this time to Williamsburg with dispatches, he
stopped at William's Ferry to dine with his friend
Major Chamberlayne, and there he met Martha
Dandridge, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis.
She was young, pretty, intelligent, and an heiress,
and her society seemed to attract the young sol-
dier. The afternoon wore away, the horses came
to the door at the appointed time, and after being
walked back and forth for some hours were re-
turned to the stable. The sun went down, and
still the colonel lingered. The next morning he
rode away with his dispatches, but on his return
he paused at the White House, the home of Mrs.
Custis, and then and there plighted his troth with
the charming widow. The wooing was brief and
decisive, and the successful lover departed for the
camp, to feel more keenly than ever the delays of
the British officers and the shortcomings of the
colonial government. As soon as Fort Duquesne
had fallen he hurried home, resigned his commis-
sion in the last week of December, and was mar-
ried on January 6, 1759. It was a brilliant wed-
ding party which assembled on that winter day in
the little church near the White House. There
were gathered Francis Fauquier, the gay, free-
thinking, high-living governor, gorgeous in scarlet

102 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and gold; British officers, redcoated and gold-
laced, and all the neighboring gentry in the hand-
somest clothes that London credit could furnish.
The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and
brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears ;
while the bridegroom appeared in blue and silver
trimmed with scarlet, and with gold buckles at his
knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony the
bride was taken home in a coach and six, her hus-
band riding beside her, mounted on a splendid
horse and followed by all the gentlemen of the
party.

The sunshine and glitter of the wedding-day
must have appeared to Washington deeply appro-
priate, for he certainly seemed to have all that
heart of man could desire. Just twenty-seven, in
the first flush of young manhood, keen of sense
and yet wise in experience, life must have looked
very fair and smiling. He had left the army with
a well-earned fame, and had come home to take
the wife of his choice and enjoy the good-will and
respect of all men. While away on his last cam-
paign he had been elected a member of the House
of Burgesses, and when he took his seat on remov-
ing to Williamsburg, three months after his mar-
riage, Mr. Robinson, the speaker, thanked him
publicly in eloquent words for his services to the
country. Washington rose to reply, but he was
so utterly unable to talk about himself that he
stood before the House stammering and blushing,
until the speaker said, "Sit down, Mr. Washing-

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 103

ton; your modesty equals your valor, and that
surpasses the power of any language I possess."
It is an old story, and as graceful as it is old, but
it was all very grateful to Washington, especially
as the words of the speaker bodied forth the feel-
ings of Virginia. Such an atmosphere, filled with
deserved respect and praise, was pleasant to begin
with, and then he had everything else too.

He not only continued to sit in the House year
after year and help to rule Virginia, but he served
on the church vestry, and so held in his hands the
reins of local government. He had married a
charming woman, simple, straightforward, and
sympathetic, free from gossip or pretense, and as
capable in practical matters as he was himself.
By right of birth a member of the Virginian aris-
tocracy, he had widened and strengthened his con-
nections through his wife. A man of handsome
property by the death of Lawrence Washington's
daughter, he had become by his marriage one of
the richest men of the country. Acknowledged to
be the first soldier on the continent, respected and
trusted in public, successful and happy in private
life, he had attained before he was thirty to all
that Virginia could give of wealth, prosperity, and
honor, a fact of which he was well aware, for there
never breathed a man more wisely contented than
George Washington at this period.

He made his home at Mount Vernon, adding
many acres to the estate, and giving to it his best
attention. It is needless to say that he was sue-

104 GEORGE WASHINGTON

cessful, for that was the case with everything he
undertook. He loved country life, and he was the
best and most prosperous planter in Virginia,
which was really a more difficult achievement than
the mere statement implies. Genuinely profitable
farming in Virginia was not common, for the gen-
eral system was a bad one. A single great staple,
easily produced by the reckless exhaustion of land,
and varying widely in the annual value of crops,
bred improvidence and speculation. Everything
was bought upon long credits, given by the Lon-
don merchants, and this, too, contributed largely
to carelessness and waste. The chronic state of a
planter in a business way was one of debt, and the
lack of capital made his conduct of affairs extrava-
gant and loose. With all his care and method
Washington himself was often pinched for ready
money, and it was. only by his thoroughness and
foresight that he prospered and made money while
so many of his neighbors struggled with debt and
lived on in easy luxury, not knowing what the
morrow might bring forth.

A far more serious trouble than bad business
methods was one which was little heeded at the
moment, but which really lay at the foundation of
the whole system of society and business. This
was the character of the labor by which the plan-
tations were worked. Slave labor is well known
now to be the most expensive and the worst form
of labor that can be employed. In the middle of
the eighteenth century, however, its evils were not

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 105

appreciated, either from an economical or a moral
point of view. This is not the place to discuss
the subject of African slavery in America. But
it is important to know Washington's opinions in
regard to an institution which was destined to have
such a powerful influence upon the country, and it
seems most appropriate to consider those opinions
at the moment when slaves became a practical fac-
tor in his life as a Virginian planter.

Washington accepted the system as he found it,
as most men accept the social arrangements to
which they are born. He grew up in a world
where slavery had always existed, and where its
rightfulness had never been questioned. Being on
the frontier, occupied with surveying and with
war, he never had occasion to really consider the
matter at all until he found himself at the head of
large estates, with his own prosperity dependent
on the labor of slaves. The first practical ques-
tion, therefore, was how to employ this labor to
the best advantage. A man of his clear percep-
tions soon discovered the defects of the system,
and he gave great attention to feeding and cloth-
ing his slaves, and to their general management.
Parkinson 2 says in a general way that Washing-
ton treated his slaves harshly, spoke to them
sharply, and maintained a military discipline, to
which he attributed the General's rare success as
a planter. There can be no doubt of the success,
and the military discipline is probably true, but
1 Tour in America, 1798-1800.

106 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the statement as to harshness is unsupported by
any other authority. Indeed, Parkinson even
contradicts it himself, for he says elsewhere that
Washington never bought or sold a slave, a proof
of the highest and most intelligent humanity; and
he adds in his final sketch of the General's charac-
ter, that he "was incapable of wrong-doing, but
did to all men as he would they should do to him.
Therefore it is not to be supposed that he would
injure the negro." This agrees with what we learn
from all other sources. Humane by nature, he
conceived a great interest and pity for these help-
less beings, and treated them with kindness and
forethought. In a word, he was a wise and good
master, as well as a successful one, and the con-
dition of his slaves was as happy, and their labor
as profitable, as was possible to such a system.

So the years rolled by ; the war came and then
the making of the government, and Washington's
thoughts were turned more and more, as was the
case with all the men of his time in that era of
change and of new ideas, to the consideration of
human slavery in its moral, political, and social
aspects. To trace the course of his opinions in
detail is needless. It is sufficient to summarize
them, for the results of his reflection and observa-
tion are more important than the processes by
which they were reached. Washington became
convinced that the whole system was thoroughly
bad, as well as utterly repugnant to the ideas upon
which the Revolution was fought and the govern-

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 107

ment of the United States founded. With a
prescience wonderful for those days and on that
subject, he saw that slavery meant the up -growth
in the United States of two systems so radically
hostile, both socially and economically, that they
could lead only to a struggle for political suprem-
acy, which in its course he feared would imperil
the Union. For this reason he deprecated the
introduction of the slavery question into the
debates of the first Congress, because he realized
its character, and he did not believe that the Union
or the government at that early day could bear the
strain which in this way would be produced. At
the same time he felt that a right solution must be
found or inconceivable evils would ensue. The
inherent and everlasting wrong of the system made
its continuance, to his mind, impossible. While
it existed, he believed that the laws which sur-
rounded it should be maintained, because he
thought that to violate these only added one wrong
to another. He also doubted, as will be seen in a
later chapter, where his conversation with John
Bernard is quoted, whether the negroes could be
immediately emancipated with safety either to
themselves or to the whites, in their actual condi-
tion of ignorance, illiteracy, and helplessness.
The plan which he favored, and which, it would
seem, was his hope and reliance, was first the
checking of importation, followed by a gradual
emancipation, with proper compensation to the
owners and suitable preparation and education for

108 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the slaves. He told the clergymen Asbury and
Coke, when they visited him for that purpose, that
he was in favor of emancipation, and was ready to
write a letter to the assembly to that effect.1 He
wished fervently that such a spirit might take pos-
session of the people of the country, but he wrote
to Lafayette that he despaired of seeing it. When
he died he did all that lay within his power to im-
press his views upon his countrymen by directing
that all his slaves should be set free on the death
of his wife. His -precepts and his example in this
grave matter went unheeded for many years by the
generations which came after him. But now that
slavery is dead, to the joy of all men, it is well
to remember that on this terrible question Wash-
ington's opinions were those of a humane man,
impatient of wrong, and of a noble and far-seeing
statesman, watchful of the evils that threatened
his country.2

After this digression let us return to the Vir-
ginian farmer, whose mind was not disturbed as
yet by thoughts of the destiny of the United
States, or considerations of the rights of man, but
who was much exercised by the task of making an
honest income out of his estates. To do this he
grappled with details as firmly as he did with the
general system under which all plantations in that
day were carried on. He understood every branch

1 Magazine of American History, 1880, p. 158.

2 For some expressions of Washington's opinions on slavery, see
Sparks, viii. 414, ix. 159-163, and x. 224.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 109

of farming ; he was on the alert for every improve-
ment; he rose early, worked steadily, gave to
everything his personal supervision, kept his own
accounts with wonderful exactness, and naturally
enough his brands of flour went unquestioned
everywhere, his credit was high, and he made
money — so far as it was possible under existing
conditions. Like Shakespeare, as Bishop Blou-
gram has it, he

" Saved money, spent it, owned the worth of things."

He had no fine and senseless disregard for money
or the good things of this world, but on the con-
trary saw in them not the value attached to them
by vulgar minds, but their true worth. He was a
solid, square, evenly -balanced man in those days,
believing that whatever he did was worth doing
well. So he farmed, as he fought and governed,
better than anybody else.

While thus looking after his own estates at
home, he went further afield in search of invest-
ments, keeping a shrewd eye on the western lands,
and buying wisely and judiciously whenever he
had the opportunity. He also constituted himself
now, as in a later time, the champion of the sol-
diers, for whom he had the truest sympathy and
affection, and a large part of the correspondence
of this period is devoted to their claims for the
lands granted them by the assembly. He distin-
guished carefully among them, however, those who
were undeserving, and to the major of the regi-

110 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ment, who had been excluded from the public
thanks on account of cowardice at the Great Mea-
dows, he wrote as follows: "Your impertinent
letter was delivered to me yesterday. As I am
not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor
would have taken the same language from you
personally without letting you feel some marks of
my resentment, I would advise you to be cautious
in writing me a second of the same tenor. But
for your stupidity and sottishness you might have
known, by attending to the public gazette, that
you had your full quantity of ten thousand acres
of land allowed you. But suppose you had really
fallen short, do you think your superlative merit
entitles you to greater indulgence than others?
. . . All my concern is that I ever engaged in
behalf of so ungrateful a fellow as you are." The
writer of this letter, be it said in passing, was the
man whom Mr. Weems and others tell us was
knocked down before his soldiers, and then apolo-
gized to his assailant. It may be suspected that
it was well for the recipient of this letter that he
did not have a personal interview with its author,
and it may be doubted if he ever sought one sub-
sequently. Just, generous, and magnanimous to
an extraordinary degree, Washington had a dan-
gerous temper, held well under control, but blazing
out now and again against injustice, insolence,
or oppression. He was a peaceful man, leading
a peaceful life, but the fighting spirit only slum-
bered, and it would break out at wrong of any

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 111

sort, in a way which was extremely unpleasant
and threatening to those who aroused it.

Apart from lands and money and the manage-
ment of affairs, public and private, there were
many other interests of varied nature which all
had their share of Washington's time and thought.
He was a devoted husband, and gave to his step-
children the most affectionate care. He watched
over and protected them, and when the daughter
died, after a long and wasting illness, in 1773, he
mourned for her as if she had been his own> with
all the tenderness of a deep and reserved affection.
The boy, John Custis, he made his friend and
companion from the beginning, and his letters to
the lad and about him are wise and judicious in
the highest degree. He spent much time and
thought on the question of education, and after
securing the best instructors took the boy to New
York and entered him at Columbia College in
1773. Young Custis, however, did not remain
there long, for he had fallen in love, and the fol-
lowing year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not
without some misgivings on the part of Washing-
ton, who had observed his ward's somewhat flighty
disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious
thought to his future. At home as abroad he was
an undemonstrative man, but he had abundance
of that real affection which labors for those to
whom it goes out more unselfishly and far more
effectually than that which bubbles and boils upon
the surface like a shallow, noisy brook.

112 GEORGE WASHINGTON

From the suggestions that he made in regard
to young Custis, it is evident that Washington
valued and respected education, and that he had
that regard for learning for its own sake which
always exists in large measure in every thoughtful
man. He read well, even if his active life pre-
vented his reading much, as we can see by his
vigorous English, and by his occasional allusions
to history. From his London orders we see, too,
that everything about his house must have denoted
that its possessor had refinement and taste. His
intense sense of propriety and unfailing instinct
for what was appropriate are everywhere apparent.
His dress, his furniture, his harnesses, the things
for the children, all show the same fondness for
simplicity, and yet a constant insistence that
everything should be the best of its kind. We
can learn a good deal about any man by the orna-
ments of his house, and by the portraits which
hang on his walls; for these dumb things tell us
whom among the great men of earth the owner
admires, and indicate the tastes he best loves to
gratify. When Washington first settled with his
wife at Mount Vernon, he ordered from Europe
the busts of Alexander the Great, Charles XII.
of Sweden, Julius Caesar, Frederick of Prussia,
Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, and in addition
he asked for statuettes of "two wild beasts." The
combination of soldier and statesman is the pre-
dominant admiration, then comes the reckless and
splendid military adventurer, and lastly wild life

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 113

and the chase. There is no mistaking the ideas
and fancies of the man who penned this order
which has drifted down to us from the past.

But as Washington's active life was largely out
of doors, so too were his pleasures. He loved the
fresh open-air existence of the woods and fields,
and there he found his one great amusement. He
shot and fished, but did not care much for these
pursuits, for his hobby was hunting, which grati-
fied at once his passion for horses and dogs and
his love for the strong excitement of the chase,
when dashed with just enough danger to make it
really fascinating. He showed in his sport the
same thoroughness and love of perfection that he
displayed in everything else. His stables were
filled with the best horses that Virginia could
furnish. There were the "blooded coach -horses"
for Mrs. Washington's carriage, "Magnolia," a
full-blooded Arabian, used by his owner for the
road, the ponies for the children, and finally, the
high-bred hunters Chinkling and Valiant, Ajax
and Blueskin, and the rest, all duly set down in
the register in the handwriting of the master him-
self. His first visit in the morning was to the
stables; the next to the kennels to inspect and
criticise the hounds, also methodically registered
and described, so that we can read the names of
Vulcan and Ringwood, Singer and Truelove, Music
and Sweetlips, to which the Virginian woods once
echoed nearly a century and a half ago. His
hounds were the subject of much thought, and

114 GEORGE WASHINGTON

were so constantly and critically drafted as to
speed, keenness, and bottom, that when in full cry
they ran so closely bunched that tradition says, in
classic phrase, they could have been covered with
a blanket. The hounds met three times a week in
the season, usually at Mount Vernon, sometimes
at Belvoir. They would get off at daybreak,
Washington in the midst of his hounds, splendidly
mounted, generally on his favorite Blueskin, a
powerful iron-gray horse of great speed and en-
durance. He wore a blue coat, scarlet waistcoat,
buckskin breeches, and a velvet cap. Closely fol-
lowed by his huntsman and the neighboring gen-
tlemen, with the ladies, headed, very likely, by
Mrs. Washington in a scarlet habit, he would ride
to the appointed covert and throw in. There was
no difficulty in finding, and then away they would
go, usually after a gray fox, sometimes after a big
black fox, rarely to be caught. Most of the coun-
try was wild and unfenced, rough in footing, and
offering hard and dangerous going for the horses,
but Washington always made it a rule to stay
with his hounds. Cautious or timid riders, if they
were so minded, could gallop along the wood roads
with the ladies, and content themselves with
glimpses of the hunt, but the master rode at the
front. The fields, it is to be feared, were some-
times small, but Washington hunted even if he
had only his stepson or was quite alone.

His diaries abound with allusions to the sport.
"Went a-hunting with Jacky Custis, and catched

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 115

a fox after three hours chase; found it in the
creek." "Mr. Bryan Fairfax, Mr. Grayson, and
Phil. Alexander came home by sunrise. Hunted
and catched a fox with these, Lord Fairfax, his
brother, and Colonel Fairfax, all of whom, with
Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Wilson of England, dine\l
here." Again, November 26 and 29, "Hunted
again with the same party." "1768, Jan. 8th.
Hunting again with same company. Started a
fox and run him 4 hours. Took the hounds off at
night." "Jan. 15. Shooting." "16. At home
all day with cards; it snowing." "23. Eid to
Muddy Hole and directed paths to be cut for fox-
hunting." "Feb. 12. Catched 2 foxes." "Feb.
13. Catched 2 more foxes." "Mar. 2. Catched
fox with bob'd tail and cut ears after 7 hours
chase, in which most of the dogs were worsted."
"Dec. 5. Fox-hunting with Lord Fairfax and his
brother and Colonel Fairfax. Started a fox and
lost it. Dined at Belvoir and returned in the
evening."1

So the entries run on, for he hunted almost
every day in the season, usually with success, but
always with persistence. Like all true sportsmen
Washington had a horror of illicit sport of any
kind, and although he shot comparatively little,
he was much annoyed by a vagabond who lurked
in the creeks and inlets on his estate, and slaugh-
tered his canvas-back ducks. Hearing the report
of a gun one morning, he rode through the bushes

1 MS. Diaries in State Department.

116 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and saw his poaching friend just shoving off in a
canoe. The rascal raised his gun and covered his
pursuer, whereupon Washington, the cold-blooded
and patient person so familiar in the myths, dashed
his horse headlong into the water, seized the gun,
grasped the canoe, and dragging it ashore pulled
the man out of the boat and beat him soundly. If
the man had yielded at once he would probably
have got off easily enough, but when he put Wash-
ington's life in imminent peril, the wild fighting
spirit flared up as usual.

The hunting season was of course that of the
most lavish hospitality. There was always a
great deal of dining about, but Mount Vernon was
the chief resort, and its doors, ever open, were
flung far back when people came for a meet, or
gathered to talk over the events of a good run.
Company was the rule and solitude the exception.
When only the family were at dinner, the fact was
written down in the diary with great care as an
unusual event, for Washington was the soul of
hospitality, and although he kept early hours, he
loved society and a houseful of people. Pro-
foundly reserved and silent as to himself, a lover
of solitude so far as his own thoughts and feelings
were concerned, he was far from being a solitary
man in the ordinary acceptation of the word. He
liked life and gayety and conversation, he liked
music and dancing or a game of cards when the
weather was bad, and he enjoyed heartily the
presence of young people and of his own friends.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 117

So Mount Vernon was always full of guests, and
the master noted in his diary that although he
owned more than a hundred cows he was obliged,
nevertheless, to buy butter, which suggests an
experience not unknown to gentlemen farmers of
any period, and also that company was never lack-
ing in that generous,- open house overlooking the
Potomac.

, Beyond the bounds of his own estate he had also
many occupations and pleasures. He was a mem-
ber of the House of Burgesses, diligent in his
attention to the work of governing the colony.
He was diligent also in church affairs, and very
active in the vestry, which was the seat of local
government in Virginia. We hear of him also as
the manager of lotteries, which were a common
form of raising money for local purposes, in pre-
ference to direct taxation. In a word, he was
thoroughly public-spirited, and performed all the
small duties which his position demanded in the
same spirit that he afterwards brought to the com-
mand of armies and to the government of the
nation. He had pleasure too, as well as business,
away from Mount Vernon. He liked to go to his
neighbors' houses and enjoy their hospitality as
they enjoyed his. We hear of him at the court-
house on court days, where all the countryside
gathered to talk and listen to the lawyers and hear
the news, and when he went to Williamsburg his
diary tells us of a round of dinners, beginning
with the governor, of visits to the club, and of a

118 GEORGE WASHINGTON

regular attendance at the theatre whenever actors
came to the little capital. Whether at home or
abroad, he took part in all the serious pursuits, in
all the interests, and in every reasonable pleasure
offered by the colony.

Take it for all in all, it was a manly, whole-
some, many-sided life. It kept Washington young
and strong, both mentally and physically. When
he was forty he flung the iron bar, at some village
sports, to a point which no competitor could ap-
proach. There was no man in all Virginia who
could ride a horse with such a powerful and as-
sured seat. There was no one who could journey
farther on foot, and no man at Williamsburg who
showed at the governor's receptions such a com-
manding presence, or who walked with such a
strong and elastic step. As with the body so with
the mind. He never rusted. A practical carpenter
and smith, he brought the same quiet intelligence
and firm will to the forging of iron or the felling
and sawing of trees that he had displayed in fight-
ing France. The life of a country gentleman did
not dull or stupefy him, or lead him to gross in-
dulgences. He remained well-made and athletic,
strong and enduring, keen in perception and in
sense, and warm in his feelings and affections.
Many men would have become heavy and useless
in these years of quiet country life, but Washing-
ton simply ripened, and, like all slowly maturing
men, grew stronger, abler, and wiser in the happy
years of rest and waiting which intervened be-
tween youth and middle age.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 119

Meantime, while the current of daily life flowed
on thus gently at Mount Vernon, the great stream
of public events poured by outside. It ran very
calmly at first, after the war, and then with a
quickening murmur, which increased to an omi-
nous roar when the passage of the Stamp Act
became known in America. Washington was
always a constant attendant at the assembly, in
which by sheer force of character, and despite his
lack of the talking and debating faculty, he car-
ried more weight than any other member. He
was present on May 29, 1765, when Patrick Henry
introduced his famous resolutions and menaced
the king's government in words which rang
through the continent. The resolutions were
adopted, and Washington went home, with many
anxious thoughts, to discuss the political outlook
with his friend and neighbor George Mason, one
of the keenest and ablest men in Virginia. The
utter folly of the policy embodied in the Stamp
Act struck Washington very forcibly. With
that foresight for which he was so remarkable, he
perceived what scarcely any one else even dreamt
of, that persistence in this course must surely lead
to a violent separation from the mother-country,
and it is interesting to note in this, the first in-
stance when he was called upon to consider a
political question of great magnitude, his clearness
of vision and grasp of mind. In what he wrote
there is no trace of the ambitious schemer, no
threatening nor blustering, no undue despondency

120 GEORGE WASHINGTON

nor excited hopes. But there is a calm under-
standing of all the conditions, an entire freedom
from self-deception, and the power of seeing facts
exactly as they were, which were all characteristic
of his intellectual strength, and to which we shall
need to recur again and again.

The repeal of the Stamp Act was received by
Washington with sober but sincere pleasure. He
had anticipated "direful" results and "unhappy
consequences " from its enforcement, and he freely
said that those who were instrumental in its repeal
had his cordial thanks. He was no agitator, and
had not come forward in this affair, so he now
retired again to Mount Vernon, to his farming
and hunting, where he remained, watching very
closely the progress of events. He had marked
the dangerous reservation of the principle in the
very act of repeal; he observed at Boston the
gathering strength of what the wise ministers of
George III. called sedition; he noted the arrival
of British troops in the rebellious Puritan town;
and he saw plainly enough, looming in the back-
ground, the final appeal to arms. He wrote to
Mason (April 5, 1769), that "at a time when our
lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied
with nothing less than the deprivation of Ameri-
can freedom, something should be done to avert
the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have
derived from our ancestors. But the manner of
doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the
point in question. That no man should scruple or

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 121

hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so
valuable a blessing is clearly my opinion. Yet
arms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last
resource, the dernier ressort." He then urged the
adoption of the only middle course, non-importa-
tion, but he had not much hope in this expedient,
although an honest desire is evident that it may
prove effectual.

When the assembly met in May, they received
the new governor, Lord Botetourt, with much
cordiality, and then fell to passing spirited and
sharp-spoken resolutions declaring their own rights
and defending Massachusetts. The result was a
dissolution. Thereupon the burgesses repaired to
the Raleigh tavern, where they adopted a set of
non -importation resolutions and formed an associ-
ation. The resolutions were offered by Washing-
ton, and were the result of his quiet country talks
with Mason. When the moment for action
arrived, Washington came naturally to the front,
and then returned quietly to Mount Vernon, once
more to go about his business and watch the
threatening political horizon. Virginia did not
live up to this first non-importation agreement,
and formed another a year later. But Washing-
ton was not in the habit of presenting resolutions
merely for effect, and there was nothing of the
actor in his composition. His resolutions meant
business, and he lived up to them rigidly himself.
Neither tea nor any of the proscribed articles were
allowed in his house. Most of the leaders did

122 GEORGE WASHINGTON

not realize the seriousness of the situation, but
Washington, looking forward with clear and sober
gaze, was in grim earnest, and was fully conscious
that when he offered his resolutions the colony was
trying the last peaceful remedy, and that the next
step would be war.

Still he went calmly about his many affairs as
usual, and gratified the old passion for the frontier
by a journey to Pittsburgh for the sake of lands
and soldiers' claims, and thence down the Ohio
and into the wilderness with his old friends the
trappers and pioneers. He visited the. Indian vil-
lages as in the days of the French mission, and
noted in the savages an ominous restlessness,
which seemed, like the flight of birds, to express
the dumb instinct of an approaching storm. The
clouds broke away somewhat under the kindly
management of Lord Botetourt, and then gathered
again more thickly on the accession of his succes-
sor, Lord Dunmore. With both these gentlemen
Washington was on the most friendly terms. He
visited them often, and was consulted by them, as
it behooved them to consult the strongest man
within the limits of their government. Still he
waited and watched, and scanned carefully the
news from the North. Before long he heard that
tea-chests were floating in Boston harbor, and then
from across the water came intelligence of the pas-
sage of the Port Bill and other measures destined
to crush to earth the little rebel town.

When the Virginia assembly met again, they

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 123

proceeded to congratulate the governor on the
arrival of Lady Dunmore, and then suddenly, as
all was flowing smoothly along, there came a letter
through the corresponding committee which Wash-
ington had helped to establish, telling of the mea-
sures against Boston. Everything else was thrown
aside at once, a vigorous protest was entered on
the journal of the House, and June 1, when the
Port Bill was to go into operation, was appointed
a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The
first result was prompt dissolution of the assembly.
The next was another meeting in the long room of
the Raleigh tavern, where the Boston bill was
denounced, non-importation renewed, and the
committee of correspondence instructed to take
steps for calling a general congress. Events were
beginning to move at last with perilous rapidity.
Washington dined with Lord Dunmore on the
evening of that day, rode with him, and appeared
at her ladyship's ball the next night, for it was not
his way to bite his thumb at men from whom he
differed politically, nor to call the motives of his
opponents in question. But when the 1st of June
arrived, he noted in his diary that he fasted all
day and attended the appointed services. He
always meant what he said, being of a simple
nature, and when he fasted and prayed there was
something ominously earnest about it, something
that his excellency the governor, who liked the
society of this agreeable man and wise counselor,
would have done well to consider and draw con-

124 GEORGE WASHINGTON

elusions from, and which he probably did not heed
at all. He might well have reflected, as he un-
doubtedly failed to do, that when men of the
George Washington type fast and pray on account
of political misdoings, it is well for their oppo-
nents to look to it carefully.

Meantime Boston had sent forth appeals to form
a league among the colonies, and thereupon an-
other meeting was held in the Raleigh tavern, and
a letter was dispatched advising the burgesses to
consider this matter of a general league and take
the sense of their respective counties. Virginia
and Massachusetts had joined hands now, and they
were sweeping the rest of the continent irresist-
ibly forward with them. As for Washington, he
returned to Mount Vernon and at once set about
taking the sense of his county, as he had agreed.
Before doing so he had some correspondence with
his old friend Bryan Fairfax. The Fairfaxes
naturally sided with the mother-country, and
Bryan was much distressed by the course of Vir-
ginia, and remonstrated strongly, and at length
by letter, against violent measures. Washington
replied to him: "Does it not appear as clear as
the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a
regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right
and practice of taxation on us? Does not the
uniform conduct of Parliament for some years
past confirm this? Do not all the debates, espe-
cially those just brought to us in the House of
Commons, on the side of government expressly

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 125

declare that America must be taxed in aid of the
British funds, and that she has no longer resources
within herself ? Is there anything to be expected
from petitioning after this? Is not the attack
upon the liberty and property of the people of
Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India
Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident
proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the
subsequent bills (now I dare say acts) for depriv-
ing the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for
transporting offenders into other colonies, or to
Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible
from the nature of the thing that justice can be
obtained, convince us that the administration is
determined to stick at nothing to carry its point?
Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and forti-
tude to the severest test?" He was prepared, he
continued, for anything except confiscating British
debts, which struck him as dishonorable. These
were plain but pregnant questions, but what we
mark in them, and in all his letters of this time, is
the absence of constitutional discussion, of which
America was then full. They are confined to a
direct presentation of the broad political question,
which underlay everything. Washington always
went straight to the mark, and he now saw,
through all the dust of legal and constitutional
strife, that the only real issue was whether America
was to be allowed to govern herself in her own
way or not. In the acts of the ministry he per-
ceived a policy which aimed at substantial power,

126 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and he believed that such a policy, if insisted on,
could have but one result.

The meeting of Fairfax County was held in due
course, and Washington presided. The usual
resolutions for self-government and against the
vindictive Massachusetts measures were adopted.
Union and non-importation were urged; and then
the congress, which they advocated, was recom-
mended to address a petition and remonstrance to
the king, and ask him to reflect that "from our
sovereign there can be but one appeal." Every-
thing was to be tried, everything was to be done,
but the ultimate appeal was never lost sight of
where Washington appeared, and the final sen-
tence of these Fairfax County resolves is very
characteristic of the leader in the meeting. Two
days later he wrote to the worthy and still remon-
strating Bryan Fairfax, repeating and enlarging
his former questions, and adding: "Has not Gen-
eral Gage's conduct since his arrival, in stopping
the address of his council, and publishing a pro-
clamation more becoming a Turkish bashaw than
an English governor, declaring it treason to asso-
ciate in any manner by which the commerce of
Great Britain is to be affected, — has not this
exhibited an unexampled testimony of the most
despotic system of tyranny that ever was practiced
in a free government? ... Shall we after this
whine and cry for relief, when we have already
tried it in vain? Or shall we supinely sit and
see one province after another fall a sacrifice to
despotism?" The fighting spirit of the man was

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 127

rising. There was no rash rushing forward, no
ignorant shouting for war, no blinking of the real
issue, but a foresight that nothing could dim, and
a perception of facts which nothing could confuse.
On August 1 Washington was at Williams-
burg, to represent his county in the meeting of
representatives from all Virginia. The conven-
tion passed resolutions like the Fairfax resolves,
and chose delegates to a general congress. The
silent man was now warming into action. He
"made the most eloquent speech that ever was
made," and said, "I will raise a thousand men,
subsist them at my own expense, and march them
to the relief of Boston." He was capable, it
would seem, of talking to the purpose with some
fire and force, for all he was so quiet and so retir-
ing. When there was anything to say, he could
say it so that it stirred all who listened, because
they felt that there was a mastering strength be-
hind the words. He faced the terrible issue
solemnly and firmly, but his blood was up, the
fighting spirit in him was aroused, and the con-
vention chose him as one of Virginia's six dele-
gates to the Continental Congress. He lingered
long enough to make a few preparations at Mount
Vernon. He wrote another letter to Fairfax, in-
teresting to us as showing the keenness with which
he read in the meagre news -reports the character
of Gage and of the opposing people of Massachu-
setts. Then he started for the North to take the
first step on the long and difficult path that lay
before him.

CHAPTER V

TAKING COMMAND

In the warm days of closing August, a party
of three gentlemen rode away from Mount Vernon
one morning, and set out upon their long journey
to Philadelphia. One cannot help wondering
whether a tender and somewhat sad remembrance
did not rise in Washington's mind, as he thought
of the last time he had gone northward, nearly
twenty years before. Then, he was a light-
hearted young soldier, and he and his aides, albeit
they went on business, rode gayly through the for-
ests, lighting the road with the bright colors they
wore and with the glitter of lace and arms, while
they anticipated all the pleasures of youth in the
new lands they were to visit. Now, he was in
the prime of manhood, looking into the future with
prophetic eyes, and sober as was his wont when
the shadow of coming responsibility lay dark upon
his path. With him went Patrick Henry, four
years his junior, and Edmund Pendleton, now past
threescore. They were all quiet and grave enough,
no doubt; but Washington, we may believe, was
gravest of all, because, being the most truthful of
men to himself as to others, he saw more plainly

TAKING COMMAND 129

what was coming. So they made their journey-
to the North, and on the memorable 5th of Sep-
tember they met with their brethren from the other
colonies in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia.

The Congress sat fifty-one days, occupied with
debates and discussion. Few abler, more honest,
or more memorable bodies of men have ever
assembled to settle the fate of nations. Much
debate, great and earnest in all directions, resulted
in a declaration of colonial rights, in an address to
the king, in another to the people of Canada, and
a third to the people of Great Britain ; masterly
state papers, seldom surpassed, and extorting even
then the admiration of England. In these debates
and state papers Washington took no part that is
now apparent on the face of the record. He was
silent in the Congress, and if he was consulted, as
he unquestionably was by the committees, there
is no record of it now. The simple fact was that
his time had not come. He saw men of the most
acute minds, liberal in education, patriotic in
heart, trained in law and in history, doing the
work of the moment in the best possible way. If
anything had been done wrongly, or had been left
undone, Washington would have found his voice
quickly enough, and uttered another of the "most
eloquent speeches ever made," as he did shortly
before in the Virginia convention. He could
speak in public when need was, but now there was
no need and nothing to arouse him. The work
of Congress followed the line of policy adopted by

130 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the Virginia convention, and that had proceeded
along the path marked out in the Fairfax resolves,
so that Washington could not be other than con-
tent. He occupied his own time, as we see by
notes in his diary, in visiting the delegates from
the other colonies, and in informing himself as to
their ideas and purposes, and those of the people
whom they represented. He was quietly working
for the future, the present being well taken care
of. Yet this silent man, going hither and thither,
and chatting pleasantly with this member or that,
was in some way or other impressing himself
deeply on all the delegates, for Patrick Henry
said: "If you speak of solid information and
sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unques-
tionably the greatest man on the floor."

We have a letter, written at just this time,
which shows us how Washington felt, and we see
again how his spirit rose as he saw more and more
clearly that the ultimate issue was inevitable.
The letter is addressed to Captain Mackenzie,
a British officer at Boston, and an old friend.
"Permit me," he began, "with the freedom of a
friend (for you know I always esteemed you), to
express my sorrow that fortune should place you
in a service that must fix curses to the latest pos-
terity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which,
by the by, is impossible) accompanies it, execra-
tions upon all those who have been instrumental
in the execution." This was rather uncompro-
mising talk and not over peaceable, it must be

TAKING COMMAND 131

confessed. He continued: "Give me leave to
add, and I think I can announce it as a fact, that
it is not the wish or intent of that government
[Massachusetts], or any other upon this continent,
separately or collectively, to set up for independ-
ence ; but this you may at the same time rely on,
that none of them will ever submit to the loss of
those valuable rights and privileges which are
essential to the happiness of every free state, and
without which life, liberty, and property are
rendered totally insecure. . . . Again give me
leave to add as my opinion that more blood will
be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are
determined to push matters to extremity, than
history has ever yet furnished instances of in the
annals of North America, and such a vital wound
will be given to the peace of this great country,
as time itself cannot cure or eradicate the remem-
brance of." Washington was not a political
agitator like Sam Adams, planning with unerring
intelligence to bring about independence. On the
contrary, he rightly declared that independence
was not desired. But although he believed in
exhausting every argument and every peaceful
remedy, it is evident that he felt that there now
could be but one result, and that violent separa-
tion from the mother country was inevitable.
Here is where he differed from his associates and
from the great mass of the people, and it is to
this entire veracity of mind that his wisdom and
foresight were so largely due, as well as his sue- .

132 GEORGE WASHINGTON

cess when the time came for him to put his hand
to the plough.

When Congress adjourned, Washington re-
turned to Mount Vernon, to the pursuits and
pleasures that he loved, to his family and farm,
and to his horses and hounds, with whom he had
many a good run, the last that he was to enjoy for
years to come. He returned also to wait and
watch as before, and to see war rapidly gather in
the east. When the Virginia convention again
assembled, resolutions were introduced to arm
and discipline men, and Henry declared in their
support that an "appeal to arms and to the God
of Hosts " was all that was left. Washington said
nothing, but he served on the committee to draft
a plan of defense, and then fell to reviewing the
independent companies which were springing up
everywhere. At the same time he wrote to his
brother John, who had raised a troop, that he
would accept the command of it if desired, as it
was his "full intention to devote his life and for-
tune in the cause we are engaged in, if needful."
At Mount Vernon his old comrades of the French
war began to appear, in search of courage and
sympathy. Thither, too, came Charles Lee, a
typical military adventurer of that period, a man of
English birth and of varied service, brilliant, whim-
sical, and unbalanced. There also came Horatio
Gates, likewise British, and disappointed with his
prospects at home; less adventurous than Lee, but
also less brilliant, and not much more valuable.

TAKING COMMAND 133

Thus the winter wore away; spring opened, and
toward the end of April Washington started again
for the North, much occupied with certain tidings
from Lexington and Concord which just then
spread over the land. He saw all that it meant
plainly enough, and after noting the fact that the
colonists fought and fought well, he wrote to
George Fairfax in England: "Unhappy it is to
reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed
in a brother's breast, and that the once happy
and peaceful plains of America are either to
be drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad
alternative. But can a virtuous man hesitate in
his choice?" Congress, it would seem, thought
there was a good deal of room for hesitation, both
for virtuous men and others, and after the fashion
of their race determined to do a little more debat-
ing and arguing, before taking any decisive step.
After much resistance and discussion, a second
"humble and dutiful petition" to the king was
adopted, and with strange contradiction a confed-
eration was formed at the same time, and Congress
proceeded to exercise the sovereign powers thus
vested in them. The most pressing and trouble-
some question before them was what to do with
the army surrounding Boston, and with the actual
hostilities there existing.

Washington, for his part, went quietly about as
before, saying nothing and observing much, work-
ing hard as chairman of the military committees,
planning for defense, and arranging for raising an

134 GEORGE WASHINGTON

army. One act of his alone stands out for us with
significance at this critical time. In this second
Congress he appeared habitually on the floor in
his blue and buff uniform of a Virginia colonel.
It was his way of saying that the hour for action
had come, and that he at least was ready for the
fight whenever called upon.

Presently he was summoned. Weary of wait-
ing, John Adams at last declared that Congress
must adopt the army and make Washington, who
at this mention of his name stepped out of the
room, commander-in-chief. On June 15, formal
motions were made to this effect and unanimously
adopted, and the next day Washington appeared
before Congress and accepted the trust. His
words were few and simple. He expressed his
sense of his own insufficiency for the task before
him, and said that as no pecuniary consideration
could have induced him to undertake the work, he
must decline all pay or emoluments, only looking
to Congress to defray his expenses. In the same
spirit he wrote to his soldiers in Virginia, to his
brother, and finally, in terms at once simple and
pathetic, to his wife. There was no pretense
about this, but the sternest reality of self -distrust,
for Washington saw and measured as did no one
else the magnitude of the work before him. He
knew that he was about to face the best troops of
Europe, and he had learned by experience that
after the first excitement was over he would be
obliged to rely upon a people who were brave and

TAKING COMMAND 135

patriotic, but also undisciplined, untrained, and
unprepared for war, without money, without arms,
without allies or credit, and torn by selfish local
interests. Nobody else perceived all this as he
was able to with his mastery of facts, but he faced
the duty unflinchingly. He did not put it aside
because he distrusted himself, for in his truth-
fulness he could not but confess that no other
American could show one tithe of his capacity,
experience, or military service. He knew what
was coming, knew it, no doubt, when he first put
on his uniform, and he accepted instantly.

John Adams in his autobiography speaks of the
necessity of choosing a Southern general, and also
says there were objectors to the selection of Wash-
ington even among the Virginia delegates. That
there were political reasons for taking a Virginian
cannot be doubted. But the dissent, even if it
existed, never appeared on the surface, excepting
in the case of John Hancock, who, with curious
vanity, thought that he ought to have this great
place. When Washington's name was proposed
there was no murmur of opposition, for there was
no man who could for one moment be compared
with him in fitness. The choice was inevitable,
and he himself felt it to be so. He saw it com-
ing; he would fain have avoided the great task,
but no thought of shrinking crossed his mind.
He saw with his entire freedom from constitu-
tional subtleties that an absolute parliament sought
to extend its power to the colonies. To this he

136 GEORGE WASHINGTON

would not submit, and he knew that this was a
question which could be settled only by one side
giving way, or by the dread appeal to arms. It
was a question of fact, hard, unrelenting fact, now
to be determined by battle, and on him had fallen
the burden of sustaining the cause of his country.
In this spirit he accepted his commission, and rode
forth to review the troops. He was greeted with
loud acclaim wherever he appeared. Mankind is
impressed by externals, and those who gazed upon
Washington in the streets of Philadelphia felt
their courage rise and their hearts grow strong at
the sight of his virile, muscular figure as he
passed before them on horseback, stately, digni-
fied, and self-contained. The people looked upon
him, and were confident that this was a man
worthy and able to dare and do all things.

On June 21 he set forth accompanied by Lee
and Schuyler, and with a brilliant escort. He
had ridden but twenty miles when he was met by
the news of Bunker Hill. "Did the militia
fight?" was the immediate and characteristic
question; and being told that they did fight, he
exclaimed, "Then the liberties of the country are
safe." Given the fighting spirit, Washington
felt he could do anything. Full of this important
intelligence he pressed forward to Newark, where
he was received by a committee of the provincial
congress, sent to conduct the commander-in-chief
to New York. There he tarried long enough to
appoint Schuyler to the charge of the military

TAKING COMMAND 137

affairs in that colony, having mastered on the
journey its complicated social and political con-
ditions. Pushing on through Connecticut he
reached Watertown, where he was received by the
provincial congress of Massachusetts, on July 2,
with every expression of attachment and confi-
dence. Lingering less than an hour for this cere-
mony, he rode on to the headquarters at Cam-
bridge, and when he came within the lines the
shouts of the soldiers and the booming of cannon
announced his arrival to the English in Boston.

The next day he rode forth in the presence of a
great multitude, and the troops having been drawn
up before him, he drew his sword beneath the
historical elm-tree, and took command of the first
American army. "His excellency," wrote Dr.
Thatcher in his journal, "was on horseback in
company with several military gentlemen. It was
not difficult to distinguish him from all others.
He is tall and well proportioned, and his personal
appearance truly noble and majestic." "He is tall
and of easy and agreeable address," the loyalist
Curwen had remarked a few weeks before; while
Mrs. John Adams, warm-hearted and clever,
wrote to her husband after the general's arrival:
"Dignity, ease, and complacency, the gentleman
and the soldier, look agreeably blended in him.
Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.
Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me, —

1 Mark his majestic fabric ! He 's a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine ;

138 GEORGE WASHINGTON

His soul 's the deity that lodges there ;
Nor is the pile unworthy of the God. ' *

Lady, lawyer, and surgeon, patriot and tory,
all speak alike, and as they wrote so New England
felt. A slave-owner, an aristocrat, and a church-
man, Washington came to Cambridge to pass over
the heads of native generals to the command of a
New England army, among a democratic people,
hard-working and simple in their lives, and dis-
senters to the backbone, who regarded episcopacy
as something little short of papistry and quite
equivalent to toryism. Yet the shout that went
up from soldiers and people on Cambridge com-
mon on that pleasant July morning came from the
heart and had no jarring note, A few of the
political chiefs growled a little in later days at
Washington, but the soldiers and the people, high
and low, rich and poor, gave him an unstinted
loyalty. On the fields of battle and throughout
eight years of political strife the men of ^ew Eng-
land stood by the great Virginian with a devotion
and truth in which was no shadow of turning.
Here again we see exhibited most conspicuously
the powerful personality of the man who was able
thus to command immediately the allegiance of
this naturally cold and reserved people. What
was it that they saw which inspired them at once
with so much confidence? They looked upon a
tall, handsome man, dressed in plain uniform,
wearing across his breast a broad blue band of
silk, which some may have noticed as the badge

TAKING COMMAND 139

and symbol of a certain solemn league and cove-
nant once very momentous in the English-speaking
world. They saw his calm, high bearing, and in
every line of face and figure they beheld the signs
of force and courage. Yet there must have been
something more to call forth the confidence then
so quickly given, and which no one ever long
withheld. All felt dimly, but none the less surely,
that here was a strong, able man, capable of rising
to the emergency, whatever it might be, capable
of continued growth and development, clear of
head and warm of heart ; and so the New England
people gave to him instinctively their sympathy
and their faith, and never took either back.

The shouts and cheers died away, and then
Washington returned to his temporary quarters in
the Wadsworth house, to master the task before
him. The first great test of his courage and abil-
ity had come, and he faced it quietly as the excite-
ment caused by his arrival passed by. He saw
before him, to use his own words, "a mixed mul-
titude of people, under very little discipline, order,
or government." In the language of one of his
aides : x " The entire army, if it deserved the name,
was but an assemblage of brave, enthusiastic,
undisciplined, country lads; the officers in general
quite as ignorant of military life as the troops,
excepting a few elderly men, who had seen some
irregular service among the provincials under
Lord Amherst." With this force, ill-posted and
1 John Trumbull, Reminiscences, p. 18.

140 GEORGE WASHINGTON

very insecurely fortified, Washington was to drive
the British from Boston. His first step was to
count his men, and it took eight days to get the
necessary returns, which in an ordinary army
would have been furnished in an hour. When he
had them, he found that instead of twenty thou-
sand, as had been represented, but fourteen thou-
sand soldiers were actually present for duty. In
a short time, however, Mr. Emerson, the chaplain,
noted in his diary that it was surprising how much
had been done, that the lines had been so extended,
and the works so shrewdly built, that it was mor-
ally impossible for the enemy to get out except in
one place purposely left open. A little later the
same observer remarked : " There is a great over-
turning in the camp as to order and regularity;
new lords, new laws. The Generals Washington
and Lee are upon the lines every day. The strict-
est government is taking place, and great distinc-
tion is made between officers and soldiers."
Bodies of troops scattered here and there by
chance were replaced by well-distributed forces,
posted wisely and effectively in strong intrench -
ments. It is little wonder that the worthy chap-
lain was impressed, and now, seeing it all from
every side, we too can watch order come out of
chaos and mark the growth of an army under the
guidance of a master-mind and the steady pressure
of an unbending will.

Then too there was no discipline, for the army
was composed of raw militia, who elected their

TAKING COMMAND 141

officers and carried on war as they pleased. In
a passage suppressed by Mr. Sparks, Washington
said: "There is no such thing as getting officers
of this stamp to carry orders into execution — to
curry favor with the men (by whom they were
chosen, and on whose smile they may possibly think
that they may again rely) seems to be one of the
principal objects of their attention. I have made
a pretty good slam amongst such kind of officers
as the Massachusetts government abounds in, since
I came into this camp, having broke one colonel
and two captains for cowardly behavior in the
action on Bunker Hill, two captains for drawing
more pay and provisions than they had men in
their company, and one for being absent from his
post when the enemy appeared there and burnt a
house just by it. Besides these I have at this
time one colonel, one major, one captain, and two
subalterns under arrest for trial. In short, I
spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as
these people seem to be too attentive to everything
but their own interests." This may be plain and
homely in phrase, but it is not stilted, and the
quick energy of the words shows how the New
England farmers and fishermen were being rapidly
brought to discipline. Bringing the army into
order, however, was but a small part of his duties.
It is necessary to run over all his difficulties, great
and small, at this time, and count them up, in
order to gain a just idea of the force and capacity
of the man who overcame them.

142 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington, in the first place, was obliged to
deal not only with his army, but with the general
congress and the congress of the province. He
had to teach them, utterly ignorant as they were
of the needs and details of war, how to organize
and supply their armies. There was no commis-
sary department, there were no uniforms, no
arrangements for ammunition, no small arms, no
cannon, no resources to draw upon for all these
necessaries of war. Little by little he taught
Congress to provide after a fashion for these
things, little by little he developed what he
needed, and by his own ingenuity, and by seizing
alertly every suggestion from others, he supplied
for better or worse one deficiency after another.
He had to deal with various governors and various
colonies, each with its prejudices, jealousies, and
shortcomings. He had to arrange for new levies
from a people unused to war, and to settle with
infinite anxiety and much wear and tear of mind
and body, the conflict as to rank among officers to
whom he could apply no test but his own insight.
He had to organize and stimulate the arming of
privateers, which, by preying on British com-
merce, were destined to exercise such a powerful
influence on the fate of the war. It was neither
showy nor attractive, such work as this, but it was
very vital, and it was done.

By the end of July the army was in a better
posture of defense ; and then at the beginning of
the next month, as the prospect was brightening,

TAKING COMMAND 143

it was suddenly discovered that there was no gun-
powder. An undrilled army, imperfectly organ-
ized, was facing a disciplined force and had only
some nine rounds in the cartridge-boxes. Yet
there is no quivering in the letters from headquar-
ters. Anxiety and strain of nerve are apparent;
but a resolute determination rises over all, sup-
ported by a ready fertility of resource. Couriers
flew over the country asking for powder in every
town, and in every village. A vessel was even
dispatched to the Bermudas to seize there a supply
of powder, of which the general, always listening,
had heard. Thus the immediate and grinding
pressure was presently relieved, but the staple of
war still remained pitifully and perilously meagre
all through the winter.

Meantime, while thus overwhelmed with the
cares immediately about him, Washington was
watching the rest of the country. He had a keen
eye upon Johnson and his Indians in the valley of
the Mohawk; he followed sharply every move-
ment of Tryon and the Tories in New York ; he
refused with stern good sense to detach troops to
Connecticut and Long Island, knowing well when
to give and when to say No, a difficult monosyl-
lable for the new general of freshly revolted colo-
nies. But if he would not detach in one place, he
was ready enough to do so in another. He sent
one expedition by Lake Champlain, under Mont-
gomery, to Montreal, and gave Arnold picked
troops to march through the wilds of Maine and

144 GEORGE WASHINGTON

strike Quebec. The scheme was bold and bril-
liant, both in conception and in execution, and
came very near severing Canada forever from the
British crown. A chapter of little accidents, each
one of which proved as fatal as it was unavoid-
able, a moment's delay on the Plains of Abraham,
and the whole campaign failed; but there was a
grasp of conditions, a clearness of perception, and
a comprehensiveness about the plan, which stamp
it as the work of a great soldier, who saw besides
the military importance, the enormous political
value held out by the chance of such a victory.

The daring, far-reaching quality of this Cana-
dian expedition was much more congenial to
Washington's temper and character than the
wearing work of the siege. All that man could
do before Boston was done, and still Congress
expected the impossible, and grumbled because
without ships he did not secure the harbor. He
himself, while he inwardly resented such criticism,
chafed under the monotonous drudgery of the
intrenchments. He was longing, according to his
nature, to fight, and was, it must be confessed,
quite ready to attempt the impossible in his own
way. Early in September he proposed to attack
the town in boats and by the neck of land at Rox-
bury, but the council of officers unanimously voted
against him. A little more than a month later
he planned another attack, and was again voted
down by his officers. Councils of war never fight,
it is said, and perhaps in this case it was well that

TAKING COMMAND 145

such was their habit, for the schemes look rather
desperate now. To us they serve to show the
temper of the man, and also his self-control in
this respect at the beginning of the war, for Wash-
ington became ready enough afterwards to over-
ride councils when he was wholly free from doubt
himself.

Thus the planning of campaigns, both distant
and near, went on, and at the same time the cur-
rent of details, difficult, vital, absolute in demand-
ing prompt and vigorous solution, went on too.
The existence of war made it necessary to fix our
relations with our enemies, and that these rela-
tions should be rightly settled was of vast moment
to our cause, struggling for recognition. The
first question was the matter of prisoners, and on
August 11 Washington wrote to Gage: —

"I understand that the officers engaged in the
cause of liberty and their country, who by the for-
tune of war have fallen into your hands, have been
thrown indiscriminately into a common gaol ap-
propriated for felons; that no consideration has
been had for those of the most respectable rank,
when languishing with wounds and sickness; and
that some have been even amputated in this un-
worthy situation.

"Let your opinion, sir, of the principle which
actuates them be what it may, they suppose that
they act from the noblest of all principles, a love
of freedom and their country. But political prin-
ciples, I conceive, are foreign to this point. The

146 GEORGE WASHINGTON

obligations arising from the rights of humanity
and claims of rank are universally binding and
extensive, except in case of retaliation. These, I
should have hoped, would have dictated a more
tender treatment of those individuals whom chance
or war had put in your power. Nor can I forbear
suggesting its fatal tendency to widen that un-
happy breach which you, and those ministers under
whom you act, have repeatedly declared your wish
is to see forever closed.

"My duty now makes it necessary to apprise
you, that for the future I shall regulate all my
conduct towards those gentlemen who are or may
be in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall
observe towards those of ours now in your cus-
tody.

"If severity and hardship mark the line of
your conduct, painful as it may be to me, your
prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and
humanity are shown to ours, I shall with pleasure
consider those in our hands only as unfortunate,
and they shall receive from me that treatment to
which the unfortunate are ever entitled."

This is a letter worthy of a little study. The
affair does not look very important now, but it
went then to the roots of things; for this letter
would go out to the world, and America and the
American cause would be judged by their leader.
A little bluster or ferocity, any fine writing, or
any absurdity, and the world would have sneered,
condemned, or laughed. But no man could read

TAKING COMMAND 147

this letter and fail to perceive that here was dig-
nity and force, justice and sense, with just a touch
of pathos and eloquence to recommend it to the
heart. Men might differ with the writer, but
they could neither laugh at him nor set him aside.
Gage replied after his kind. He was an incon-
siderable person, dull and well meaning, intended
for the command of a garrison town, and terribly
twisted and torn by the great events in which he
was momentarily caught. His masters were stupid
and arrogant, and he imitated them with perfect
success, except that arrogance with him dwindled
to impertinence. He answered Washington's let-
ter with denials and recriminations, lectured the
American general on the political situation, and
talked about "usurped authority," "rebels,"
"criminals," and persons destined to the "cord."
Washington, being a man of his word, proceeded
to put some English prisoners into jail, and then
wrote a second note, giving Gage a little lesson in
manners, with the vain hope of making him see
that gentlemen did not scold and vituperate be-
cause they fought. He restated his case calmly
and coolly, as before, informed Gage that he had
investigated the counter-charge of cruelty and
found it without any foundation, and then con-
tinued: "You advise me to give free operation to
truth, and to punish misrepresentation and false-
hood. If experience stamps value upon counsel,
yours must have a weight which few can claim.
You best can tell how far the convulsion, which

148 GEORGE WASHINGTON

has brought such ruin on both countries, and
shaken the mighty empire of Britain to its foun-
dation, may be traced to these malignant causes.

"You affect, sir, to despise all rank not derived
from the same source with your own. I cannot
conceive one more honorable than that which
flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and
free people, the purest source and original foun-
tain of all power. Far from making it a plea for
cruelty, a mind of true magnanimity and enlarged
ideas would comprehend and respect it."

Washington had grasped instinctively the gen-
eral truth that Englishmen are prone to mistake
civility for servility, and become offensive, whereas
if they are treated with indifference, rebuke, or
even rudeness, they are apt to be respectful and
polite. He was obliged to go over the same
ground with Sir William Howe, a little later, and
still more sharply; and this matter of prisoners
recurred, although at longer and longer intervals,
throughout the war. But as the British generals
saw their officers go to jail, and found that their
impudence and assumption were met by keen
reproofs, they gradually comprehended that Wash-
ington was not a man to be trifled with, and that
in him was a pride and dignity out-topping theirs
and far stronger, because grounded on responsi-
bility borne and work done, and on the deep sense
of a great and righteous cause.

It was probably a pleasure and a relief to give
to Gage and Sir William Howe a little instruction

TAKING COMMAND 149

in military behavior and general good manners,
but there was nothing save infinite vexation in
dealing with the difficulties arising on the Ameri-
can side of the line. As the days shortened and
the leaves fell, Washington saw before him a New
England winter, with no clothing and no money
for his troops. Through long letters to Congress,
and strenuous personal efforts, these wants were
somehow supplied. Then the men began to get
restless and homesick, and both privates and offi-
cers would disappear to their farms, which Wash-
ington, always impatient of wrongdoing, styled
"base and pernicious conduct," and punished ac-
cordingly. By and by the terms of enlistment
ran out and the regiments began to melt away
even before the proper date. Recruiting was
carried on slowly and with difficulty, new levies
were tardy in coming in, and Congress could not
be persuaded to stop limited enlistments. Still
the task was done. The old army departed and a
new one arose in its place, the posts were strength-
ened and ammunition secured.

Among these reinforcements came some Vir-
ginia riflemen, and it must have warmed Wash-
ington's heart to see once more these brave and
hardy fighters in the familiar hunting shirt and
leggins. They certainly made him warm in a very
different sense by getting into a rough-and-tumble
fight one winter's day with some Marblehead fish-
ermen. The quarrel was at its height, when sud-
denly into the brawl rode the commander-in-chief.

150 GEORGE WASHINGTON

He quickly dismounted, seized two of the combat-
ants, shook them, berated them, if tradition may
be trusted, for their local jealousies, and so with
strong arm quelled the disturbance. He must
have longed to take more than one colonial gov-
ernor or magnate by the throat and shake him
soundly, as he did his soldiers from the woods of
Virginia and the rocks of Marblehead, for to his
temper there was nothing so satisfying as rapid
and decisive action. But he could not quell
governors and assemblies in this way, and yet he
managed them and got what he wanted with a
patience and tact which it must have been in the
last degree trying to him to practice, gifted as he
was with a nature at once masterful and pas-
sionate.

Another trial was brought about by his secur-
ing and sending out privateers which did good
service. They brought in many valuable prizes
which caused infinite trouble, and forced Wash-
ington not only to be a naval secretary, but also
made him a species of admiralty judge. He im-
plored the slow-moving Congress to relieve him
from this burden, and suggested a plan which led
to the formation of special committees and was
the origin of the Federal judiciary of the United
States. Besides the local jealousies and the per-
sonal jealousies, and the privateers and their
prizes, he had to meet also the greed and selfish-
ness as well of the money-making, stock -jobbing
spirit which springs up raiikly under the influence

TAKING COMMAND 151

of army contracts and large expenditures among
a people accustomed to trade and unused to war.
Washington wrote savagely of these practices,
but still, despite all hindrances and annoyances,
he kept moving straight on to his object.

In the midst of his labors, harassed and tried
in all ways, he was assailed as usual by complaint
and criticism. Some of it came to him through
his friend and aide, Joseph Reed, to whom he
wrote in reply one of the noblest letters ever
penned by a great man struggling with adverse
circumstances and wringing victory from grudging
fortune. He said that he was always ready to
welcome criticism, hear advice, and learn the
opinion of the world. "For as I have but one
capital object in view, I could wish to make my
conduct coincide with the wishes of mankind, as
far as I can consistently; I mean, without depart-
ing from that great line of duty which, though
hid under a cloud for some time, from a pecul-
iarity of circumstances, may, nevertheless, bear a
scrutiny." Thus he held fast to "the great line
of duty," though bitterly tried the while by the
news from Canada, where brilliant beginnings
were coming to dismal endings, and cheered only
by the arrival of his wife, who drove up one day
in her coach and four, with the horses ridden by
black postilions in scarlet and white liveries, much
to the amazement, no doubt, of the sober-minded
New England folk.

Light, however, finally began to break on the

152 GEORGE WASHINGTON

work about him. Henry Knox, sent out for that
purpose, returned safely with the guns captured at
Ticonderoga, and thus heavy ordnance and gun-
powder were obtained. By the middle of Febru-
ary the harbor was frozen over, and Washington
arranged to cross the ice and carry Boston by
storm. Again he was held back by his council,
but this time he could not be stopped. If he
could not cross the ice he would go by land. He
had been slowly but surely advancing his works
all winter, and now he determined on a decisive
stroke. On the evening of Monday, March 4,
under cover of a heavy bombardment which dis-
tracted the enemy's attention, he marched a large
body of troops to Dorchester Heights and began
to throw up redoubts. The work went forward
rapidly, and Washington rode about all night
encouraging the men. The New England soldiers
had sorely tried his temper, and there were many
severe attacks and bitter criticisms upon them in
his letters, which were suppressed or smoothed
over for the most part by Mr. Sparks, but which
have come to light since, as is sometimes the case
with facts. Gradually, however, the General had
come to know his soldiers better, and six months
later he wrote to Lund Washington, praising his
northern troops in the highest terms. Even now
he understood them as never before, and as he
watched them on that raw March night, working
with the energy and quick intelligence of their
race, he probably felt that the defects were super-

TAKING COMMAND 153

ficial, but the virtues, the tenacity, and the cour-
age were lasting and strong.

When day dawned, and the British caught sight
of the formidable works which had sprung up in
the night, there was a great excitement and run-
ning hither and thither in the town. Still the
men on the heights worked on, and still Washing-
ton rode back and forth among them. He was
stirred and greatly rejoiced at the coming of the
fight, which he now believed inevitable, and as
always, when he was deeply moved, the hidden
springs of sentiment and passion were opened, and
he reminded his soldiers that it was the anniver-
sary of the Boston massacre, and appealed to them
by the memories of that day to prepare for battle
with the enemy. As with the Huguenots at
Ivry,—

" Remember St. Bartholomew was passed from man to man."

But the fighting never came. The British
troops were made ready, then a gale arose and
they could not cross the bay. The next day it
rained in torrents, and the next day it was too
late. The American intrenchments frowned
threateningly above the town, and began to send
in certain ominous messengers in the shape of shot
and shell. The place was now so clearly unten-
able that Howe determined to evacuate it. An
informal request to allow the troops to depart
unmolested was not answered, but Washington
suspended his fire and the British made ready to

154 GEORGE WASHINGTON

withdraw. Still they hesitated and delayer until
Washington again advanced his works, and on
this hint they started in earnest, on March 17,
amid confusion, pillage, and disorder, leaving can-
non and much else behind them, and seeking
refuge in their ships.

All was over, and the town was in the hands of
the Americans. In Washington's own words,
"To maintain a post within musket-shot of the
enemy for six months together, without powder, and
at the same time to disband one army and recruit
another within that distance of twenty-odd British
regiments, is more, probably, than ever was at-
tempted." It was, in truth, a gallant feat of
arms, carried through by the resolute will and
strong brain of one man. The troops on both
sides were brave, but the British had advantages
far more than compensating for a disparity of num-
bers, always slight and often more imaginary than
real. They had twelve thousand men, experi-
enced, disciplined, equipped, and thoroughly sup-
plied. They had the best arms and cannon and
gunpowder. They commanded the sea with a
strong fleet, and they were concentrated on the
inside line, able to strike with suddenness and
overwhelming force at any point of widely ex-
tended posts. Washington caught them with an
iron grip and tightened it steadily until, in dis-
orderly haste, they took to their boats without
even striking a blow. Washington's great abili-
ties, and the incapacity of the generals opposed to

TAKING COMMAND 155

him, were the causes of this result. If Robert
Clive, for instance, had chanced to have been
there the end might possibly have been the same,
but there would have been some bloody fighting
before that end was reached. The explanation of
the feeble abandonment of Boston lies in the stu-
pidity of the English government, which had
sown the wind and then proceeded to handle the
customary crop with equal fatuity.

There were plenty of great men in England,
but they were not conducting her government or
her armies. Lord Sandwich had declared in the
House of Lords that all "Yankees were cowards,"
a simple and satisfactory statement, readily ac-
cepted by the governing classes, and flung in the
teeth of the British soldiers as they fell back twice
from the bloody slopes of Bunker Hill. Acting
on this pleasant idea, England sent out as com-
manders of her American army a parcel of minis-
terial and court favorites, thoroughly second-rate
men, to whom was confided the task of beating
one of the best soldiers and hardest fighters of
the century. Despite the enormous material odds
in favor of Great Britain, the natural result of
matching the Howes and Gages and Clintons
against George Washington ensued, and the first
lesson was taught by the evacuation of Boston.

Washington did not linger over his victory.
Even while the British fleet still hung about the
harbor he began to send troops to New York to
make ready for the next attack. He entered

156 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Boston in order to see that every precaution was
taken against the spread of the smallpox, and
then prepared to depart himself. Two ideas,
during his first winter of conflict, had taken pos-
session of his mind, and undoubtedly influenced
profoundly his future course. One was the con-
viction that the struggle must be fought out to the
bitter end, and must bring either subjugation or
complete independence. He wrote in February:
" With respect to myself, I have never entertained
an idea of an accommodation, since I heard of the
measures which were adopted in consequence of
the Bunker's Hill fight;" and at an earlier date
he said : " I hope my countrymen (of Virginia) will
rise superior to any losses the whole navy of Great
Britain can bring on them, and that the destruc-
tion of Norfolk and threatened devastation of other
places will have no other effect than to unite the
whole country in one indissoluble band against a
nation which seems to be lost to every sense of
virtue and those feelings which distinguish a civil-
ized people from the most barbarous savages."'
With such thoughts he sought to make Congress
appreciate the probable long duration of the
struggle, and he bent every energy to giving per-
manency to his army, and decisiveness to each
campaign. The other idea which had grown in
his mind during the weary siege was that the
Tories were thoroughly dangerous and deserved
scant mercy. In his second letter to Gage he
refers to them, with the frankness which charae-

TAKING COMMAND 157

terized him when he felt strongly, as "execrable
parricides," and he made ready to treat them with
the utmost severity at New York and elsewhere.
When Washington was aroused there was a stern
and relentless side to his character, in keeping
with the force and strengtn which were his chief
qualities. His attitude on this point seems harsh
now when the old Tories no longer look very
dreadful and we can appreciate the sincerity of
conviction which no doubt controlled most of them.
But they were dangerous then, and Washington,
with his honest hatred of all that seemed to him to
partake of meanness or treason, proposed to put
them down and render them harmless, being well
convinced, after his clear-sighted fashion, that
war was not peace, and that mildness to domestic
foes was sadly misplaced.

His errand to New England was now done and
well done. His victory was won, everything was
settled at Boston; and so, having sent his army
forward, he started for New York, to meet the
harder trials that still awaited him.

CHAPTER VI

SAVING THE REVOLUTION

After leaving Boston, Washington proceeded
through Rhode Island and Connecticut, pushing
troops forward as he advanced, and reached New
York on April 13. There he found himself
plunged at once into the same sea of difficulties
with which he had been struggling at Boston, the
only difference being that these were fresh and
entirely untouched. The army was inadequate,
and the town, which was the central point of the
colonies, as well as the great river at its side, was
wholly unprotected. The troops were in large
measure raw and undrilled, the committee of
safety was hesitating, the Tories were virulent
and active, corresponding constantly with Try on,
who was lurking in a British man-of-war, while
from the north came tidings of retreat and disas-
ter. All these harassing difficulties crowded upon
the commander-in-chief as soon as he arrived. To
appreciate him it is necessary to understand these
conditions and realize their weight and conse-
quence, albeit the details seem petty. When we
comprehend the difficulties, then we can see
plainly the greatness of the man who quietly and

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 159

silently took them up and disposed of them.
Some he scotched and some he killed, but he dealt
with them all after a fashion sufficient to enable
him to move steadily forward. In his presence
the provincial committee suddenly stiffened and
grew strong. All correspondence with Tryon was
cut off, the Tories were repressed, and on Long
Island steps were taken to root out "these abomi-
nable pests of society," as the commander-in-chief
called them in his plain-spoken way. Then forts
were built, soldiers energetically recruited and
drilled, arrangements made for prisoners, and
despite all the present cares anxious thought was
given to the Canada campaign, and ideas and
expeditions, orders, suggestions, and encourage-
ment were freely furnished to the dispirited gen-
erals and broken forces of the north.

One matter, however, overshadowed all others.
Nearly a year before, Washington had seen that
there was no prospect or possibility of accommo-
dation with Great Britain. It was plain to his
mind that the struggle was final in its character
and would be decisive. Separation from the
mother country, therefore, ought to come at once,
so that public opinion might be concentrated, and
above all, permanency ought to be given to the
army. These ideas he had been striving to im-
press upon Congress, for the most part less clear-
sighted than he was as to facts, and as the months
slipped by his letters had grown constantly more
earnest and more vehement. Still Congress

160 GEORGE WASHINGTON

hesitated, and at last Washington went himself to
Philadelphia and held conferences with the prin-
cipal men. What he said is lost, but the tone of
Congress certainly rose after his visit. The
aggressive leaders found their hands so much
strengthened that little more than a month later
they carried through a declaration of independ-
ence, which was solemnly and gratefully pro-
claimed to the army by the general, much relieved
to have got through the necessary boat-burning,
and to have brought affairs, military and political,
on to the hard ground of actual fact.

Soon after his return from Philadelphia, he
received convincing proof that his views in regard
to the Tories were extremely sound. A conspir-
acy devised by Try on, which aimed apparently at
the assassination of the commander-in-chief, and
which had corrupted his life-guards for that pur-
pose, was discovered and scattered before it had
fairly hardened into definite form. The mayor of
the city and various other persons were seized and
thrown into prison, and one of the life-guards,
Thomas Hickey by name, who was the principal
tool in the plot, was hanged in the presence of a
large concourse of people. Washington wrote a
brief and business-like account of the affair to
Congress, from which one would hardly suppose
that his own life had been aimed at. It is a curi-
ous instance of his cool indifference to personal
danger. The conspiracy had failed, that was
sufficient for him, and he had other things besides

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 161

himself to consider. "We expect a bloody sum-
mer in New York and Canada," he wrote to his
brother, and even while the Canadian expedition
was coming to a disastrous close, and was bring-
ing hostile invasion instead of the hoped-for con-
quest, British men-of-war were arriving daily in
the harbor, and a large army was collecting on
Staten Island. The rejoicings over the Declara-
tion of Independence had hardly died away, when
the vessels of the enemy made their way up the
Hudson without check from the embryo forts,
or the obstacles placed in the stream.

July 12 Lord Howe arrived with more troops,
and also with ample powers to pardon and negoti-
ate. Almost immediately he tried to open a cor-
respondence with Washington, but Colonel Keed,
in behalf of the General, refused to receive the
letter addressed to "Mr. Washington." Then
Lord Howe sent an officer to the American camp
with a second letter, addressed to " George Wash-
ington, Esq., etc., etc." The bearer was cour-
teously received, but the letter was declined.
"The etc., etc. implies everything," said the
Englishman. It may also mean "anything,"
Washington replied, and added that touching the
pardoning power of Lord Howe there could be no
pardon where there was no guilt, and where no
forgiveness was asked. As a result of these inter-
views, Lord Howe wrote to England that it would
be well to give Mr. Washington his proper title.
A small question, apparently, this of the form of

162 GEORGE WASHINGTON

address, especially to a lover of facts, and yet it
was in reality of genuine importance. To the
world Washington represented the young republic,
and he was determined to extort from England
the first acknowledgment of independence by com-
pelling her to recognize the Americans as belli-
gerents and not rebels. Washington cared as
little for vain shows as any man who ever lived,
but he had the highest sense of personal dignity,
and of the dignity of his cause and country. Nei-
ther should be allowed to suffer in his hands. He
appreciated the effect on mankind of forms and
titles, and with unerring judgment he insisted
on what he knew to be of real value. It is one
of the earliest examples of the dignity and good
taste which were of such inestimable value to his
country.

He had abundant occasion also for the employ-
ment of these same qualities, coupled with un-
wearied patience and tact, in dealing with his own
men. The present army was drawn from a wider
range than that which had taken Boston, and sec-
tional jealousies and disputes, growing every day
more hateful to the commander-in-chief, sprang
up rankly. The men of Maryland thought those
of Connecticut ploughboys; the latter held the
former to be fops and dandies. These and a hun-
dred other disputes buzzed and whirled about
Washington, stirring his strong temper, and
exercising his sternest self-control in the untiring
effort to suppress them and put them to death.

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 163

"It requires," John Adams truly said, "more
serenity of temper, a deeper understanding, and
more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough,
to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these
qualities were all there, and with them an honesty
of purpose and an unbending directness of charac-
ter to which Anne's great general was a stranger.
Meantime, while the internal difficulties were
slowly diminished, the forces of the enemy rapidly
increased. First it became evident that attacks
were not feasible. Then the question changed to
a mere choice of defenses. Even as to this there
was great and harassing doubt, for the enemy, hav-
ing command of the water, could concentrate and
attack at any point they pleased. Moreover, the
British had thirty thousand of the best disciplined
and best equipped troops that Europe could fur-
nish, while Washington had some twenty thousand
men, one fourth of whom were unfit for duty,
and with the remaining three fourths, raw recruits
for the most part, he was obliged to defend an
extended line of posts, without cavalry, and with
no means for rapid concentration. Had he been
governed solely by military considerations he
would have removed the inhabitants, burned New
York, and drawing his forces together would have
taken up a secure post of observation. To have
destroyed the town, however, not only would have
frightened the timid and the doubters, and driven
them over to the Tories, but would have dispirited
the patriots not yet alive to the exigencies of war,

164 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and deeply injured the American cause. That
Washington well understood the need of such ac-
tion is clear, both from the current rumors that
the town was to be burned, and from his expressed
desire to remove the women and children from
New York. But political considerations overruled
the military necessity, and he spared the town.
It was bad enough to be thus hampered, but he
was even more fettered in other ways, for he could
not even concentrate his forces and withdraw to
the Highlands without a battle, as he was obliged
to fight in order to sustain public feeling, and thus
he was driven on to almost sure defeat. With
Brooklyn Heights in the hands of the enemy New
York was untenable, and yet it was obvious that to
hold Brooklyn when the enemy controlled the sea
was inviting defeat. Yet Washington under the
existing conditions had no choice except to fight
on Long Island and to say that he hoped to make
a good defense.

Everything, too, as the day of battle drew near,
seemed to make against him. On August 22
the enemy began to land on Long Island, where
Greene had drawn a strong line of redoubts be-
hind the village of Brooklyn, to defend the heights
which commanded New York, and had made every
arrangement to protect the three roads through
the wooded hills, about a mile from the intrench-
ments. Most unfortunately, and just at the crit-
ical moment, Greene was taken down with a
raging fever, so that when Washington came over

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 165

on the 24th he found much confusion in the camps,
which he repressed as best he could, and then
prepared for the attack. Greene's illness, how-
ever, had caused some oversights which were un-
known to the commander-in-chief, and which, as
it turned out, proved fatal.

After indecisive skirmishing for two or three
days, the British started early on the morning of
the 26th. They had nine .thousand men and were
well informed as to the country. Advancing
through woodpaths and lanes, they came round to
the left flank of the Americans. One of the roads
through the hills was unguarded, the others feebly
protected. The result is soon told. The Ameri-
cans, out-generaled and out-flanked, were taken
by surprise and surrounded, Sullivan and his divi-
sion were cut off, and then Lord Stirling. There
was some desperate fighting, and the Americans
showed plenty of courage, but only a few forced
their way out. Most of them were killed or taken
prisoners, the total loss out of some five thousand
men reaching as high as two thousand.

From the redoubts, whither he had come at
the sound of the firing, Washington watched the
slaughter and disaster in grim silence. He saw
the British troops, flushed with victory, press on
to the very edge of his works and then withdraw
in obedience to command. The British generals
had their prey so surely, as they believed, that
they mercifully decided not to waste life unneces-
sarily by storming the works in the first glow

166 GEORGE WASHINGTON

of success. So they waited during that night
and the two following days, while Washington
strengthened his intrenchments, brought over
reinforcements, and prepared for the worst. On
the 29th it became apparent that there was a
movement in the fleet, and that arrangements were
being made to take the Americans in the rear and
wholly cut them off. It was an obvious and sen-
sible plan, but the British overlooked the fact that
while they were lingering, summing up their vic-
tory, and counting the future as assured, there was
a silent watchful man on the other side of the
redoubts who for forty-eight hours never left the
lines, and who with a great capacity for stubborn
fighting could move, when the stress came, with
the celerity and stealth of a panther.

Washington swiftly determined to retreat. It
was a desperate undertaking, and a lesser man
would have hesitated and been lost. He had to
transport nine thousand men across a strait of
strong tides and currents, and three quarters of
a mile in width. It was necessary to collect
the boats from a distance, and do it all within
sight and hearing of the enemy. The boats were
obtained, a thick mist settled down on sea and
land, the water was calm, and as the night wore
away, the entire army with all its arms and bag-
gage was carried over, Washington leaving in the
last boat. At daybreak the British awoke, but it
was too late. They had fought a successful battle,
they had had the American army in their grasp,

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 167

and now all was over. The victory had melted
away, and, as a grand result, they had a few hun-
dred prisoners, a stray boat with three camp-fol-
lowers, and the deserted works in which they
stood. To grasp so surely the happy chance of
wind and weather and make such a retreat as this
was a feat of arms as great as most victories, and
in it we see, perhaps as plainly as anywhere, the
nerve and quickness of the man who conducted it.
It is true, it was the only chance of salvation, but
the great man is he who is entirely master of his
opportunity, even if he have but one.

The outlook, nevertheless, was, as Washington
wrote, "truly distressing." The troops were dis-
pirited, and the militia began to disappear, as they
always did after a defeat. Congress would not
permit the destruction of the city, different inter-
ests pulled in different directions, conflicting opin-
ions distracted the councils of war, and, with utter
inability to predict the enemy's movements, every-
thing led to halfway measures and to intense
anxiety, while Lord Howe tried to negotiate with
Congress, and the Americans waited for events.
Washington, looking beyond the confusion of the
moment, saw that he had gained much by delay,
and had his own plan well defined. He wrote :
"We have not only delayed the operations of the
campaign till it is too late to effect any capital
incursion into the country, but have drawn the
enemy's forces to one point. ... It would be pre-
sumption to draw out our young troops into open

168 GEORGE WASHINGTON -

ground against their superiors both in number and
discipline, and I have never spared the spade and
pickaxe." Every one else, however, saw only past
defeat and present peril.

The British ships gradually made their way up
the river, until it became apparent that they in-
tended to surround and cut off the American
army. Washington made preparations to with-
draw, but uncertainty of information came near
rendering his precautions futile. September 15
the men-of-war opened fire, and troops were landed
near Kip's Bay. The militia in the breastworks
at that point had been at Brooklyn and gave way
at once, communicating their panic to two Con-
necticut regiments. Washington, galloping down
to the scene of battle, came upon the disordered
and flying troops. He dashed in among them,
conjuring them to stop, but even while he was try-
ing to rally them they broke again on the appear-
ance of some sixty or seventy of the enemy, and
ran in all directions. In a tempest of anger
Washington drew his pistols, struck the fugitives
with his sword, and was only forced from the field
by one of his officers seizing the bridle of his
horse and dragging him away from the British,
now within a hundred yards of the spot.

Through all his trials and anxieties Washington
always showed the broadest and most generous
sympathy. When the militia had begun to leave
him a few days before, although he despised their
action and protested bitterly to Congress against

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 169

their employment, yet in his letters he displayed a
keen appreciation of their feelings, and saw plainly
every palliation and excuse. But there was one
thing which he could never appreciate nor realize.
It was from first to last impossible for him to
understand how any man could refuse to fight, or
could think of running away. When he beheld
rout and cowardly panic before his very eyes, his
temper broke loose and ran uncontrolled. His one
thought then was to fight to the last, and he would
have thrown himself single-handed on the enemy,
with all his wisdom and prudence flung to the
winds. The day when the commander held his
place merely by virtue of personal prowess lay far
back in the centuries, and no one knew it better
than Washington. But the old fighting spirit
awoke within him when the clash of arms sounded
in his ears, and though we may know the general
in the tent and in the council, we can only know
the man when he breaks out from all rules and
customs, and shows the rage of battle, and the
indomitable eagerness for the fray, which lie at
the bottom of the tenacity and courage that car-
ried the war for independence to a triumphant
close.

The rout and panic over, Washington quickly
turned to deal with the pressing danger. With
coolness and quickness he issued his orders, and
succeeded in getting his army off, Putnam's divi-
sion escaping most narrowly. He then took post
at King's Bridge, and began to strengthen and

170 GEORGE WASHINGTON

fortify his lines. While thus engaged, the enemy
advanced, and on the 16th Washington suddenly
took the offensive and attacked the British light
troops. The result was a sharp skirmish, in which
the British were driven back with serious loss, and
great bravery was shown by the Connecticut and
Virginia troops, the two commanding officers be-
ing killed. This affair, which was the first gleam
of success, encouraged the troops, and was turned
to the best account by the general. Still a suc-
cessful skirmish did not touch the essential diffi-
culties of the situation, which then as always
came from within, rather than without. To face
and check twenty -five thousand well-equipped and
highly disciplined soldiers Washington had now
some twelve thousand men, lacking in everything
which goes to make an army, except mere indi-
vidual courage and a high average of intelligence.
Even this meagre force was an inconstant and
diminishing quantity, shifting, uncertain, and al-
ways threatening dissolution.

The task of facing and fighting the enemy was
enough for the ablest of men; but Washington
was obliged also to combat and overcome the
inertness and dullness born of ignorance, and to
teach Congress how to govern a nation at war.
In the hours "allotted to sleep," he sat in his
headquarters, writing a letter, with "blots and
scratches," which told Congress with the utmost
precision and vigor just what was needed. It was
but one of a long series of similar letters, written

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 171

with unconquerable patience and with unwearied
iteration, lighted here and there by flashes of deep
and angry feeling, which would finally strike home
under the pressure of defeat, and bring the patri-
ots of the legislature to sudden action, always
incomplete, but still action of some sort. It must
have been inexpressibly dreary work, but quite as
much was due to those letters as to the battles.
Thinking for other people, and teaching them what
to do, is at best an ungrateful duty, but when it
is done while an enemy is at your throat, it shows
a grim tenacity of purpose which is well worth
consideration.

In this instance the letter of September 24,
read in the light of the battles of Long Island and
Kip's Bay, had a considerable effect. The first
steps were taken to make the army national and
permanent, to raise the pay of officers, and to
lengthen enlistments. Like most of the war mea-
sures of Congress, they were too late for the im-
mediate necessity, but they helped the future.
Congress, moreover, then felt that all had been
done that could be demanded, and relapsed once
more into confidence. "The British force," said
John Adams, chairman of the board of war, "is
so divided, they will do no great matter this fall."
But Washington, facing hard facts, wrote to Con-
gress with his unsparing truth on October 4:
"Give me leave to say, sir, (I say it with due
deference and respect, and my knowledge of the
facts, added to the importance of the cause and

172 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the stake I hold in it, must justify the freedom,)
that your affairs are in a more unpromising way
than you seem to apprehend. Your army, as I
mentioned in my last, is on the eve of its political
dissolution. True it is, you have voted a larger
one in lieu of it ; but the season is late ; and there
is a material difference between voting battalions
and raising men."

The campaign as seen from the board of war
and from the Plains of Harlem differed widely.
It is needless to say now which was correct ; every
one knows that the General was right and Con-
gress wrong, but being in the right did not help
Washington, nor did he take petty pleasure in
being able to say, "I told you how it would be."
The hard facts remained unchanged. There was
the wholly patriotic but slumberous, and for fight-
ing purposes quite inefficient Congress still to be
waked up and kept awake, and to be instructed.
With painful and plain-spoken repetition this
work was grappled with and done methodically,
and like all else as effectively as was possible.

Meanwhile the days slipped along, and Wash-
ington waited on the Harlem Plains, planning
descents on Long Island, and determining to
make a desperate stand where he was, unless
the situation decidedly changed. Then the situa-
tion did change, as neither he nor any one else
apparently had anticipated. The British war-
ships came up the Hudson past the forts, brush-
ing aside our boasted obstructions, destroying our

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 173

little fleet, and getting command of the river.
Then General Howe landed at Frog's Point,
where he was checked for the moment by the good
disposition of Heath, under Washington's direc-
tion. These two events made it evident that the
situation of the American army was full of peril,
and that retreat was again necessary. Such cer-
tainly was the conclusion of the council of war,
on the 16th, acting this time in agreement with
their chief. Six days Howe lingered on Frog's
Point, bringing up stores or artillery or some-
thing ; it matters little now why he tarried. Suf-
fice it that he waited, and gave six days to his
opponent. They were of little value to Howe,
but they were of inestimable worth to Washing-
ton, who employed them in getting everything in
readiness, in holding his council of war, and then
on the 17th in moving deliberately off to very
strong ground at White Plains. On his way he
fought two or three slight, sharp, and successful
skirmishes with the British. Sir William fol-
lowed closely, but with much caution, having now
a dull glimmer in his mind that at the head of the
raw troops in front of him was a man with whom
it was not safe to be entirely careless.

On the 28th, Howe came up to Washington's
position, and found the Americans quite equal in
numbers, strongly intrenched, and awaiting his
attack with confidence. He hesitated, doubted,
and finally feeling that he must do something,
sent four thousand men to storm Chatterton Hill,

174 GEORGE WASHINGTON

an outlying post, where some fourteen hundred
Americans . were stationed. There was a short,
sharp action, and then the Americans retreated in
good order to the main army, having lost less than
half as many men as their opponents. With
caution now much enlarged, Howe sent for rein-
forcements, and waited two days. The third day
it rained, and on the fourth Howe found that
Washington had withdrawn to a higher and quite
impregnable line of hills, where he held all the
passes in the rear and awaited a second attack.
Howe contemplated the situation for two or three
days longer, and then broke camp and withdrew
to Dobbs Ferry to secure Fort Washington, which
treachery offered him as an easy and inviting-
prize. Such were the great results of the victory
of Long Island, two wasted months, and the
American army still untouched.

Howe was resolved that his campaign should
not be utterly fruitless, and therefore directed his
attention to the defenses of the Hudson, and here
he met with better success. Congress, in its mili-
tary wisdom, had insisted that these forts must
and could be held. So thought the generals,
and so most especially, and most unluckily, did
Greene. Washington, with his usual accurate
and keen perception, saw, from the time the men-
of-war came up the Hudson, and, now that the
British army was free, more clearly than ever, that
both forts ought to be abandoned. Sure of his
ground, he overruled Congress, but was so far in-

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 175

fluenced by Greene that he gave to that officer
discretionary orders as to withdrawal. This was
an act of weakness, as he afterwards admitted, for
which he bitterly reproached himself, never con-
fusing or glossing over his own errors, but loyal
there, as elsewhere, to facts. An attempt was
made to hold both forts, and both were lost, as he
had foreseen. From Fort Lee the garrison with-
drew in safety. Fort Washington, with its plans
all in Howe's hands through the treachery of
William Demont, the adjutant of Colonel Magaw,
was carried by storm, after a severe struggle.
Twenty-six hundred men and all the munitions of
war fell into the hands of the enemy. It was a
serious and most depressing loss, and was felt
throughout the continent.

Meantime Washington had crossed into the
Jerseys, and, after the loss of Fort Lee, began
to retreat before the British, who, flushed with
victory, now advanced rapidly under Lord Corn-
wallis. The crisis of his fate and of the Revolu-
tion was upon him. His army was melting away.
The militia had almost all disappeared, and regi-
ments whose term of enlistment had expired were
departing daily. Lee, who had a division under
his command, was ordered to come up, but paid no
attention, although the orders were repeated almost
every day for a month. He lingered, and loitered,
and excused himself, and at last was taken pris-
oner. This disposed of him for a time very satis-
factorily, but meanwhile he had succeeded in keep-

176 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ing his troops from Washington, which was a most
serious misfortune.

On December 2 Washington was at Princeton
with three thousand ragged men, and the British
close upon his heels. They had him now surely
in their grip. There could be no mistake this
time, and there was therefore no need of a forced
march. But they had not yet learned that to
Washington even hours meant much, and when,
after duly resting, they reached the Delaware,
they found the Americans on the other side, and
all the boats destroyed for a distance of seventy
miles.

It was winter now, the short gray days had
come, and with them piercing cold and storms of
sleet and ice. It seemed as if the elements alone
would finally disperse the feeble body of men still
gathered about the commander-in-chief. Con-
gress had sent him blank commissions and orders
to recruit, which were well meant, but were not
practically of much value. As Glendower could
call spirits from the vasty deep, so they, with like
success, sought to call soldiers from the earth in
the midst of defeat, and in the teeth of a North
American winter. Washington, baffling pursuit
and flying from town to town, left nothing un-
done. North and south went letters and appeals
for men, money, and supplies. Vain, very vain,
it all was, for the most part, but still it was
done in a tenacious spirit. Lee would not come,
the Jersey militia would not turn out, thousands

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 177

began to accept Howe's amnesty, and signs of
wavering were apparent in some of the Middle
States. Philadelphia was threatened, Newport
was in the hands of the enemy, and for ninety
miles Washington had retreated, evading ruin
again and again only by the width of a river.
Congress voted not to leave Philadelphia, — a fact
which their General declined to publish, — and
then fled.

No one remained to face the grim realities of
the time but Washington, and he met them un-
moved. Not a moment passed that he did not
seek in some way to effect something. Not an
hour went by that he did not turn calmly from
fresh and ever renewed disappointment to work
and action.

By the middle of December Howe felt satis-
fied that the American army would soon dissolve,
and leaving strong detachments in various posts
he withdrew to New York. His premises were
sound, and his conclusions logical, but he made his
usual mistake of overlooking and underestimating
the American general. No sooner was it known
that he was on his way to New York than Wash-
ington, at the head of his dissolving army, re-
solved to take the offensive and strike an outlying
post. In a letter of December 14, the day after
Howe began to move, we catch the first glimpse
of Trenton. It was a bold spirit which, in the
dead of winter, with a broken army, no prospect
of reinforcements, and in the midst of a terror-

178 GEOKGE WASHINGTON

stricken people, could thus resolve with some four
thousand men to attack an army thoroughly ap-
pointed, and numbering in all its divisions twenty-
five thousand soldiers.

It is well to pause a moment and look at that
situation, and at the overwhelming difficulties
which hemmed it in, and then try to realize what
manner of man he was who rose superior to it, and
conquered it. Be it remembered, too, that he
never deceived himself, and never for one instant
disguised the truth. Two years later he wrote
that at this supreme moment, in what were called
"the dark days of America," he was never de-
spondent; and this was true enough, for despair
was not in his nature. But no delusions lent
him courage. On the 18th he wrote to his bro-
ther "that if every nerve was not strained to
recruit this new army the game was pretty nearly
up;" and added, "You can form no idea of the
perplexity of my situation. No man, I believe,
ever had a greater choice of difficulties, and less
means to extricate himself from them. However,
under a full persuasion of the justice of our cause,
I cannot entertain an idea that it will finally sink,
though it may remain for some time under a
cloud." There is no complaint, no boasting, no
despair in this letter. We can detect a bitterness
in the references to Congress and to Lee, but the
tone of the letter is as calm as a May morning,
and it concludes with sending love and good
wishes to the writer's sister and her family.

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 179

Thus in the dreary winter Washington was
planning and devising and sending hither and thi-
ther for men, and never ceased through it all to
write urgent and ever sharper letters and keep a
wary eye upon the future. He not only wrote
strongly, but he pledged his own estate and ex-
ceeded his powers in desperate efforts to raise
money and men. On the 20th he wrote to Con-
gress : "It may be thought that I am going a good
deal out of the line of my duty to adopt these
measures, or to advise thus freely. A character
to lose, an estate to forfeit, the inestimable bless-
ings of liberty at stake, and a life devoted, must
be my excuse." Even now across the century
these words come with a grave solemnity to our
ears, and we can feel as he felt when he alone
saw that he stood on the brink of a great crisis.
It is an awful thing to know that the life of a
nation is at stake, and this thought throbs in his
words, measured and quiet as usual, but deeply
fraught with much meaning to him and to the
world.

By Christmas all was ready, and when the
Christian world was rejoicing and feasting, and
the British officers in New York and in the New
Jersey towns were reveling and laughing, Wash-
ington prepared to strike. His whole force,
broken into various detachments, was less than
six thousand men. To each division was assigned,
with provident forethought, its exact part. No-
thing was overlooked, nothing omitted ; and then

180 GEORGE WASHINGTON

every division commander failed, for good reason
or bad, to do his duty. Gates was to march from
Bristol with two thousand men, Ewing was to
cross at Trenton, Putnam was to come up from
Philadelphia, Griffin was to make a diversion
against Donop. When the moment came, Gates,
disapproving the scheme, was on his way to
Congress, and Wilkinson, with his message, found
his way to headquarters by following the bloody
tracks of the barefooted soldiers. Griffin aban-
doned New Jersey and fled before Donop. Put-
nam would not even attempt to leave Philadel-
phia, and Ewing made no effort to cross at
Trenton. Cadwalader, indeed, came down from
Bristol, but after looking at the river and the float-
ing ice, gave it up as desperate.

But there was one man who did not hesitate
nor give up, nor halt on account of floating
ice. With twenty-four hundred hardy veterans,
Washington crossed the Delaware. The night
was bitter cold and the passage difficult. When
they landed, and began their march of nine miles
to Trenton, a fierce storm of sleet drove in their
faces. Sullivan, marching by the river, sent word
that the arms of his men were wet. " Then tell
your general," said Washington, "to use the
bayonet, for the town must be taken." In broad
daylight they came to the town. Washington,
at the front and on the right of the line, swept
down the Pennington road, and as he drove in the
pickets he heard the shouts of Sullivan's men, as,

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 181

with Stark leading the van, they charged in from
the river. A company of yagers and the light
dragoons slipped away, there was a little confused
righting in the streets, Colonel Rahl fell, mortally
wounded, his Hessians threw down their arms,
and all was over. The battle had been fought
and won, and the Revolution was saved.

Taking his thousand prisoners with him, Wash-
ington recrossed the Delaware to his old position.
Had all done their duty, as he had planned, the
British hold on New Jersey would have been shat-
tered. As it was, it was only loosened. Con-
gress, aroused at last, had invested Washington
with almost dictatorial powers; but the time for
action was short. The army was again melting
away, and only by urgent appeals were some veter-
ans retained, and enough new men gathered to
make a force of five thousand men. With this
army Washington prepared to finish what he had
begun.

Trenton struck alarm and dismay into the Brit-
ish, and Cornwallis, with seven thousand of the
best troops, started from New York to redeem
what had been lost. Leaving three regiments at
Princeton, he pushed hotly after Washington,
who fell back behind the Assunpink River, skir-
mishing heavily and successfully. When Corn-
wallis reached the river he found the American
army drawn up on the other side awaiting him.
An attack on the bridge was repulsed, and the
prospect looked uninviting. Some officers urged

182 GEORGE WASHINGTON

an immediate assault; but night was falling, and
Cornwallis, sure of the game, decided to wait till
the morrow. He, too, forgot that he was facing
an enemy who never overlooked a mistake, and
never waited an hour. With quick decision
Washington left his camp-fires burning on the
river bank, and taking roundabout roads, which he
had already reconnoitred, marched on to Prince-
ton. By sunrise he was in the outskirts of the
town. Mercer, detached with some three hun-
dred men, fell in with Mawhood's regiment, and
a sharp action ensued. Mercer was mortally
wounded, and his men gave way just as the main
army came upon the field. The British charged,
and as the raw Pennsylvanian troops in the van
wavered, Washington rode to the front, and rein-
ing his horse within thirty yards of the British,
ordered his men to advance. The volleys of mus-
ketry left him unscathed, the men stood firm, the
other divisions came rapidly into action, and the
enemy gave way in all directions. The two other
British regiments were driven through the town
and routed. Had there been cavalry they would
have been entirely cut off. As it was, they were
completely broken, and in this short but bloody
action they lost five hundred men in killed,
wounded, and prisoners. It was too late to strike
the magazines at Brunswick, as Washington had
intended, and so he withdrew once more with his
army to the high lands to rest and recruit.

His work was done, however. The country,

SAVING THE REVOLUTION 183

which had been supine, and even hostile, rose
now, and the British were attacked, surprised,
and cut off in all directions, until at last they were
shut up in the immediate vicinity of New York.
The tide had been turned, and Washington had
won the precious breathing-time which was all he
required.

Frederick the Great is reported to have said that
this was the most brilliant campaign of the cen-
tury. It certainly showed all the characteristics
of the highest strategy and most consummate gen-
eralship. With a force numerically insignificant
as compared with that opposed to him, Washing-
ton won two decisive victories, striking the enemy
suddenly with superior numbers at each point of
attack. The Trenton campaign has all the qual-
ity of some of the last battles fought by Napoleon
in France before his retirement to Elba. More-
over, these battles show not only generalship of
the first order, but great statesmanship. They
display that prescient knowledge which recognizes
the supreme moment when all must be risked to
save the state. By Trenton and Princeton Wash-
ington inflicted deadly blows upon the enemy, but
he did far more by reviving the patriotic spirit of
the country fainting under the bitter experience
of defeat, and by sending fresh life and hope and
courage throughout the whole people.

It was the decisive moment of the war. Sooner
or later the American colonies were sure to part
from the mother-country, either peaceably or vio-

184 GEORGE WASHINGTON

lently. But there was nothing inevitable in the
Revolution of 1776, nor was its end at all cer-
tain. It was in the last extremities when the
British overran New Jersey, and if it had not
been for Washington that particular revolution
would have most surely failed. Its fate lay in the
hands of the general and his army; and to the
strong brain growing ever keener and quicker as
the pressure became more intense, to the iron will
gathering a more relentless force as defeat thick-
ened, to the high, unbending character, and to the
passionate and fighting temper of Washington,
we owe the brilliant campaign which in the dark-
est hour turned the tide and saved the cause of
the Revolution.

CHAPTER VII

"malice domestic, and foreign levy"

After the "two lucky strokes at Trenton and
Princeton," as he himself called them, Washing-
ton took up a strong position at Morristown and
waited. His plan was to hold the enemy in check,
and to delay all operations until spring. It is
easy enough now to state his purpose, and it looks
very simple, but it was a grim task to carry it out
through the bleak winter days of 1777. The Jer-
seys farmers, spurred by the sufferings inflicted
upon them by the British troops, had turned out
at last in deference to Washington's appeals, after
the victories of Trenton and Princeton, had har-
assed and cut off outlying parties, and had thus
straitened the movements of the enemy. But the
main army of the colonies, on which all depended,
was in a pitiable state. It shifted its character
almost from day to day. The curse of short en-
listments, so denounced by Washington, made
itself felt now with frightful effect. With the
new year most of the continental troops departed,
while others to replace them came in very slowly,
and recruiting dragged most wearisomely. Wash-
ington was thus obliged, with temporary rein-

186 GEORGE WASHINGTON

forcements of raw militia, to keep up appearances ;
and no commander ever struggled with a more
trying task. At times it looked as if the whole
army would actually disappear, and more than
once Washington expected that the week's or the
month's end would find him with not more than
five hundred men. At the beginning of March
he had about four thousand men, a few weeks later
only three thousand raw troops, ill-fed, ill-clad,
ill -shod, ill -armed, and almost unpaid. Over
against him was Howe, with eleven thousand men
in the field, and still more in the city of New
York, well disciplined and equipped, well-armed,
well-fed, and furnished with every needful supply.
The contrast is absolutely grotesque, and yet the
force of one man's genius and will was such that
this excellent British army was hemmed in and
kept in harmless quiet by their ragged opponents.
Washington's plan, from the first, was to keep
the field at all hazards, and literally at all hazards
did he do so. Eight and left his letters went, day
after day, calling with pathetic but dignified ear-
nestness for men and supplies. In one of these
epistles, to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island,
written in January, to remonstrate against raising
troops for the State only, he set forth his inten-
tions in a few words. "You must be sensible,"
he said, "that the season is fast approaching when
a new campaign will open ; nay, the former is not
yet closed; nor do I intend it shall be, unless the
enemy quits the Jerseys." To keep fighting all

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 187

the time, and never let the fire of active resistance
flicker or die out, was Washington's theory of the
way to maintain his own side and beat the enemy.
If he could not fight big battles, he would fight
small ones ; if he could not fight little battles, he
would raid and skirmish and surprise ; but fight-
ing of some sort he would have, while the enemy
attempted to spread over a State and hold posses-
sion of it. We can see the obstacles now, but we
can only wonder how they were sufficiently over-
come to allow anything to be done.

Moreover, besides the purely physical difficul-
ties in the lack of men, money, and supplies,
there were others of a political and personal kind,
which were even more wearing and trying, but
which, nevertheless, had to be dealt with also, in
some fashion. In order to sustain the courage of
the people Washington was obliged to give out,
and to allow it to be supposed, that he had more
men than was really the case, and so Congress
and various wise and well-meaning persons grum-
bled because he did not do more and fight more
battles. He never deceived Congress, but they
either could not or would not understand the
actual situation. In March he wrote to Robert
Morris: "Nor is it in my power to make Con-
gress fully sensible of the real situation of our
affairs, and that it is with difficulty, if I may use
the expression, that I can by every means in my
power keep the life and soul of this army together.
In a word, when they are at a distance, they thr\\

188 GEORGE WASHINGTON

it is but to say, Presto, begone, and everything is
done. They seem not to have any conception of
the difficulty and perplexity attending those who
are to execute. " It was so easy to see what they
would like to have done, and so simple to pass a
resolve to that effect, that Congress never could
appreciate the reality of the difficulty and the
danger until the hand of the enemy was almost at
their throats. They were not even content with
delay and neglect, but interfered actively at times,
as in the matter of the exchange of prisoners,
where they made unending trouble for Washing-
ton, and showed themselves unable to learn or to
keep their hands off after any amount of instruc-
tion.

In January Washington issued a proclamation
requiring those inhabitants who had subscribed
to Howe's declaration to come in within thirty
days and take the oath of allegiance to the United
States. If they failed to do so they were to be
treated as enemies. The measure was an emi-
nently proper one, and the proclamation was
couched in the most moderate language. It was
impossible to permit a large class of persons to
exist on the theory that they were peaceful Ameri-
can citizens and also subjects of King George.
The results of such conduct were in every way
perilous and intolerable, and Washington was
determined that he would divide the sheep from
the goats, and know whom he was defending and
whom attacking. Yet for this wise and necessary

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 189

action he was called in question in Congress and
accused of violating civil rights and the resolves
of Congress itself. Nothing was actually done
about it, but such an incident shows from a single
point the infinite tact and resolution required in
waging war under a government whose members
were unable to comprehend what was meant, and
who could not see that until they had beaten Eng-
land it was hardly worth while to worry about
civil rights, which in case of defeat would speedily
cease to exist altogether.

Another fertile source of trouble arose from
questions of rank. Members of Congress, in
making promotions and appointments, were more
apt to consider local claims than military merit,
and they also allowed their own personal preju-
dices to affect their action in €his respect far too
much. Thence arose endless heart-burnirigs and
jealousies, followed by resignations and the loss
of valuable officers. Congress, having made the
appointments, would go cheerfully about its busi-
ness, while the swarm of grievances thus let loose
would come buzzing about the devoted head of the
commander-in-chief. He could not adjourn, but
was compelled to quiet rivalries, allay irritated
feelings, and ride the storm as best he might. It
was all done, however, in one way or another : by
personal appeals, and by letters full of dignity,
patriotism, and patience, which are very impres-
sive and full of meaning for students of character,
even in this day and generation.

190 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Then again, not content with snarling up our
native appointments, Congress complicated mat-
ters still more dangerously by its treatment of
foreigners. The members of Congress were colo-
nists, and the fact that they had shaken off the
yoke of the mother country did not in the least
alter their colonial and perfectly natural habit of
regarding with enormous respect Englishmen and
Frenchmen, and indeed anybody who had had the
good fortune to be born in Europe. The result
was that they distributed commissions and gave
inordinate rank to the many volunteers who came
over the ocean, actuated by various motives, but
all filled with a profound sense of their own
merits. It is only fair to Congress to say that
the American agents abroad were even more to
blame in this respect. Silas Deane especially
scattered promises of commissions with a lavish
hand, and Congress refused to fulfill many of the
promises thus made in its name. Nevertheless,
Congress was far too lax, and followed too closely
the example of its agents. Some of these foreign-
ers were disinterested men and excellent soldiers,
who proved of great value to the American cause.
Many others were mere military adventurers,
capable of being turned to good account, perhaps,
but by no means entitled to what they claimed
and in most instances received.

The ill-considered action of Congress and of
our agents abroad in this respect was a source of
constantly recurring troubles of a very serious

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 191

nature. Native officers, who had borne the bur-
den and heat of the day, justly resented being
superseded by some stranger, unable to speak the
language, who had landed in the States but a
few days before. As a result, resignations were
threatened which, if carried out, would affect the
character of the army very deeply. Then again,
the foreigners themselves, inflated by the eager-
ness of our agents and by their reception at the
hands of Congress, would find on joining the army
that they could get no commands, chiefly because
there were none to give. They would then become
dissatisfied with their rank and employment, and
bitter complaints and recriminations would ensue.
All these difficulties, of course, fell most heavily
upon the commander-in-chief, who was heartily
disgusted with the whole business. Washington
believed from the beginning, and said over and
over again in various and ever stronger terms,
that this was an American war and must be
fought by Americans. In no other way, and by
no other persons, did he consider that it could be
carried to any success worth having. He saw of
course the importance of a French alliance, and
deeply desired it, for it was a leading element in
the solution of the political and military situation;
but alliance with a foreign power was one thing,
and sporadic military volunteers were another.
Washington had no narrow prejudices against
foreigners, for he was a man of broad and liberal
mind, and no one was more universally beloved

192 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and respected by the foreign officers than he; but
he was intensely American in his feelings, and he
would not admit for an instant that the American
war for independence could be righteously fought
or honestly won by others than Americans. He
was well aware that foreign volunteers had a value
and use of which he largely and gratefully availed
himself; but he was exasperated and alarmed by
the indiscriminate and lavish way in which Con-
gress and our agents abroad gave rank and office
to them. "Hungry adventurers," he called them
in one letter, when driven beyond endurance by
the endless annoyances thus forced upon him; and
so he pushed their pretensions aside, and managed,
on the whole, to keep them in their proper place.
The operation was delicate, difficult, and unplea-
sant, for it seemed to savor of ingratitude. But
Washington was never shaken for an instant in
his policy, and while he checked the danger, he
showed in many instances, like Lafayette and
Steuben, that he could appreciate and use all that
was really valuable in the foreign contingent.

The service rendered by Washington in this
matter has never been justly understood or appre-
ciated. If he had not taken this position, and
held it with an absolute firmness which bordered
on harshness, we should have found ourselves in
a short time with an army of American soldiers
officered by foreigners, many of them mere mer-
cenaries, " hungry adventurers," from France,
Poland or Hungary, from Germany, Ireland or

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 193

England. The result of such a combination would
have been disorganization and defeat. That mem-
bers of Congress and some of our representatives
in Europe did not see the danger, and that they
were impressed by the foreign officers who came
among them, was perfectly natural. Men are the
creatures of the time in which they live, and take
their color from the conditions which surround
them, as the chameleon does from the grass or
leaves in which it hides. The rulers and law-
makers of 1776 could not cast off their provincial
awe of the natives of England and Europe as they
cast off their political allegiance to the British
king. The only wonder is that there should have
been even one man so great in mind and character
that he could rise at a single bound from the level
of a provincial planter to the heights of a great
national leader. He proved himself such in all
ways, but in none more surely than in his ability
to consider all men simply as men, and, with a
judgment that nothing could confuse, to ward off
from his cause and country the dangers inherent
in colonial habits of thought and action, so mena-
cing to a people struggling for independence. We
can see this strong, high spirit of nationality run-
ning through Washington's whole career, but it
never did better service than when it stood be-
tween the American army and undue favor to for-
eign volunteers.

Among other disagreeable and necessary truths,
Washington had told Congress that Philadelphia

194 GEORGE WASHINGTON

was in danger, that Howe probably meant to
occupy it, and that it would be nearly impossible
to prevent his doing so. This warning being
given and unheeded, he continued to watch his
antagonist, doing so with increased vigilance, as
signs of activity began to appear in New York.
Toward the end of May he broke up his canton-
ments, having now about seven thousand men, and
took a strong position within ten miles of Bruns-
wick. Here he waited, keeping an anxious eye
on the Hudson in case he should be mistaken in
his expectations, and should find that the enemy
really intended to go north to meet Burgoyne
instead of south to capture Philadelphia.

Washington's doubts were soon to be resolved
and his expectations fulfilled. May 31, a fleet
of a hundred sail left New York, and couriers
were at once sent southward to warn the States of
the possibility of a speedy invasion. About the
same time transports arrived with more German
mercenaries, and Howe, thus reinforced, entered
the Jerseys. Washington determined to decline
battle, and if the enemy pushed on and crossed
the Delaware, to hang heavily on their rear, while
the militia from the south were drawn up to Phil-
adelphia. He adopted this course because he felt
confident that Howe would never cross the Dela-
ware and leave the main army of the Americans
behind him. His theory proved correct. The
British advanced and retreated, burned houses
and villages and made feints, but all in vain.

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 195

Washington baffled them at every point, and
finally Sir William evacuated the Jerseys entirely
and withdrew to New York and Staten Island,
where active preparations for some expedition
were at once begun. Again came anxious watch-
ing, with the old fear that Howe meant to go
northward and join the now advancing Burgoyne.
The fear was groundless. On July 23 the Brit-
ish fleet set sail from New York, carrying be-
tween fifteen and eighteen thousand men. Not
deceived by the efforts to make him think that
they aimed at Boston, but still fearing that the
sailing might be only a ruse and the Hudson the
real object after all, Washington moved cau-
tiously to the Delaware, holding himself ready to
strike in either direction. On the 31st he heard
that the enemy were at the Capes. This seemed
decisive ; so he sent in all directions for reinforce-
ments, moved the main army rapidly to German-
town, and prepared to defend Philadelphia. The
next news was that the fleet had put to sea again,
and again messengers went north to warn Putnam
to prepare for the defense of the Hudson. Wash-
ington himself was about to re-cross the Dela-
ware, when tidings arrived that the fleet had once
more appeared at the Capes, and after a few more
days of doubt the ships came up the Chesapeake
and anchored.

Washington thought the "route a strange one,"
but he knew now that he was right in his belief
that Howe aimed at Philadelphia. He therefore

196 GEORGE WASHINGTON

gathered his forces and marched south to meet the
enemy, passing through the city in order to im-
press the disaffected and the timid with the show
of force. It was a motley array that followed
him. There was nothing uniform about the troops
except their burnished arms and the sprigs of
evergreen in their hats. Nevertheless Lafayette,
who had just come among them, thought that they
looked like good soldiers, and the Tories woke up
sharply to the fact that there was a large body of
men known as the American army, and that they
had a certain obvious fighting capacity visible in
their appearance. Neither friends nor enemies
knew, however, as they stood on the Philadelphia
sidewalks and watched the troops go past, that the
mere fact of that army's existence was the great-
est victory of skill and endurance which the war
could show, and that the question of success lay
in its continuance.

Leaving Philadelphia, Washington pushed on
to the junction of the Brandywine and Christiana
Creek, and posted his men along the heights.
August 25, Howe landed at the Head of Elk,
and Washington threw out light parties to drive
in cattle, carry off supplies, and annoy the enemy.
This was done, on the whole, satisfactorily, and
after some successful skirmishing on the part of
the Americans, the two armies on the 5th of Sep-
tember found themselves within eight or ten miles
of each other. Washington now determined to
risk a battle in the field, despite his inferiority in

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 197

every way. He accordingly issued a stirring
proclamation to the soldiers, and then fell back
behind the Brandywine, to a strong position, and
prepared to contest the passage of the river.

Early on September 11, the British advanced
to Chad's Ford, where Washington was posted
with the main body, and after some skirmishing
began to cannonade at long range. Meantime
Cornwallis, with the main body, made a long
detour of seventeen miles, and came upon the right
flank and rear of the Americans. Sullivan, who
was on the right, had failed to guard the fords
above, and through lack of information was prac-
tically surprised. Washington, on rumors that
the enemy were marching toward his right, with
the instinct of a great soldier was about to cross
the river in his front and crush the enemy there,
hut he also was misled and kept back by false
reports. When the truth was known, it was too
late. The right wing had been beaten and flung
back, the enemy were nearly in the rear, and were
now advancing in earnest in front. All that man
could do was done. Troops were pushed forward
and a gallant stand was made at various points ;
l>ut the critical moment had come and gone, and
there was nothing for it but a hasty retreat, which
came near degenerating into a rout.

The causes of this complete defeat, for such it
was, are easily seen. Washington had planned
his battle and chosen his position well. If he had
not been deceived by the first reports, he even

198 GEORGE WASHINGTON

then would have fallen upon and overwhelmed the
British centre before they could have reached his
right wing. But the Americans, to begin with,
were outnumbered. They had only eleven thou-
sand effective men, while the British brought fif-
teen of their eighteen thousand into action. Then
the Americans suffered, as they constantly did,
from misinformation, and from an absence of sys-
tem in learning the enemy's movements. Wash-
ington's attack was fatally checked in this way,
and Sullivan was surprised from the same causes,
as well as from his own culpable ignorance of the
country beyond him, which was the reason of his
failure to guard the upper fords. The Americans
lost, also, by the unsteadiness of new troops when
the unexpected happens, and when the panic-
bearing notion that they are surprised and likely
to be surrounded comes upon them with a sudden
shock.

This defeat was complete and severe, and it was
followed in a few days by that of Wayne, who
narrowly escaped utter ruin. Yet through all this
disaster we can see the advance which had been
made since the equally unfortunate and very simi-
lar battle on Long Island. Then, the troops
seemed to lose heart and courage, the army was
held together with difficulty, and could do nothing
but retreat. Now, in the few days which Howe,
as usual, gave his opponent with such fatal effect
to himself, Washington rallied his army, and find-
ing them in excellent spirits marched down the

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 199

Lancaster road to fight again. On the eve of
battle a heavy storm came on, which so injured the
arms and munitions that with bitter disappoint-
ment he was obliged to withdraw; but neverthe-
less it is plain how much this forward movement
meant. At the moment, however, it looked badly
enough, especially after the defeat of Wayne, for
Howe pressed forward, took possession of Phila-
delphia, and encamped the main body of his army
at German town.

Meantime Washington, who had not in the least
given up his idea of fighting again, recruited his
army, and having a little more than eight thou-
sand men, determined to try another stroke at the
British, while they were weakened by detach-
ments. On the night of October 3 he started,
and reached Germantown at daybreak on the 4th.
At first the Americans swept everything before
them, and flung the British back in rout and con-
fusion. Then matters began to go wrong, as is
always likely to happen when, as in this case,
widely separated and yet accurately concerted
action is essential to success. Some of the British
threw themselves into a stone house, and instead
of leaving them there under guard, the whole
army stopped to besiege, and a precious half hour
was lost. Then Greene and Stephen were late in
coming up, having made a circuit, and although
when they arrived all seemed to go well, the
Americans were seized with an inexplicable panic,
and fell back, as Wayne truly said, in the very

200 GEORGE WASHINGTON

moment of victory. One of those unlucky acci-
dents, utterly unavoidable, but always dangerous
to extensive combinations, had a principal effect
on the result. The morning was very misty, and
the fog, soon thickened by the smoke, caused con-
fusion, random firing, and, worst of all, that un-
certainty of feeling and action which something or
nothing converted into a panic. Nevertheless, the
Americans rallied quickly this time, and a good
retreat was made, under the lead of Greene, until
safety was reached. The action, while it lasted,
had been very sharp, and the losses on both sides
were severe, the Americans suffering most.

Washington, as usual when matters went ill,
exposed himself recklessly, to the great alarm of
his generals, but all in vain. He was deeply dis-
appointed, and expressed himself so at first, for
he saw that the men had unaccountably given way
when they were on the edge of victory. The
underlying cause was of course, as at Long Island
and Brandywine, the unsteadiness of raw troops,
and Washington felt rightly, after' the first sting
had passed, that he had really achieved a great
deal. Congress applauded the attempt, and when
the smoke of the battle had cleared away, men
generally perceived that its having been fought at
all was in reality the important fact. It made
also a profound impression upon the French cabi-
net. Eagerly watching the course of events, they
saw the significance of the fact that an army
raised within a year could fight a battle in the

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 201

open field, endure a severe defeat, and then take
the offensive and make a bold and well-planned
attack, which narrowly missed being overwhelm-
ingly successful. To the observant and trained
eyes of Europe, the defeat at German town made
it evident that there was fighting material among
these untrained colonists, capable of becoming
formidable; and that there was besides a powerful
will and directing mind, capable on its part of
bringing this same material into the required shape
and condition. To dispassionate onlookers, Eng-
land's grasp on her colonies appeared to be slip-
ping away very rapidly. Washington himself saw
the meaning of it all plainly enough, for it was but
the development of his theory of carrying on the
war.

There is no indication, however, that England
detected, in all that had gone on since her army
landed at the Head of Elk, anything more than a
couple of natural defeats for the rebels. General
Howe was sufficiently impressed to draw in his
troops, and keep very closely shut up in Philadel-
phia, but his country was not moved at all. The
fact that it had taken forty-seven days to get their
army from the Elk River to Philadelphia, and
that in that time they had fought two successful
battles and yet had left the American army still
active and menacing, had no effect upon the Brit-
ish mind. The English were thoroughly satisfied
that the colonists were cowards and were sure to
be defeated, no matter what the actual facts might

202 GEORGE WASHINGTON

be. They regarded Washington as an upstart
militia colonel, and they utterly failed to compre-
hend that they had to do with a great soldier, who
was able to organize and lead an army, overcome
incredible difficulties, beat and outgeneral them,
bear defeat, and then fight again. They were
unable to realize that the mere fact that such a
man could be produced and such an army main-
tained meant the inevitable loss of colonies three
thousand miles away. Men there were in Eng-
land, undoubtedly, like Burke and Fox, who felt
and understood the significance of these things,
but the mass of the people, as well as the aristo-
cracy, the king, and the cabinet, would have none
of them. Rude contempt for other people is a
warming and satisfying feeling, no doubt, and the
English have had unquestionably great satisfac-
tion from its free indulgence. No one should
grudge it to them, least of all Americans. It is
a comfort for which they have paid, so far as this
country is concerned, by the loss of their North
American colonies, and by a few other settlements
with the United States at other and later times.

But although Washington and his army failed
to impress England, events had happened in the
north, during this same summer, which were so
sharp-pointed that they not only impressed the
English people keenly and unpleasantly, but they
actually penetrated the dull comprehension of
George III. and his cabinet. "Why," asked an
English lady of an American naval officer, in the

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 203

year of grace 1887 — "why is your ship named the
Saratoga? " "Because," was the reply, "at Sara-
toga an English general and an English army of
more than five thousand men surrendered to an
American army and laid down their arms." Al-
though apparently neglected now in the general
scheme of British education, Saratoga was a mem-
orable event in the summer of 1777, and the part
taken by Washington in bringing about the great
result has never, it would seem, been properly
set forth. There is no need to trace here the his-
tory of that campaign, but it is necessary to show
how much was done by the commander-in-chief,
five hundred miles away, to win the final victory.

In the winter of 1776-77 reports came that a
general and an army were to be sent to Canada
to invade the colonies from the north b}^ way of
Lake Champlain. The news does not seem to
have made a very deep impression generally, nor
to have been regarded as anything beyond the
ordinary course of military events. But there
was one man, fortunately, who in an instant per-
ceived the full significance of this movement.
Washington saw that the English had at last
found an idea, or, at least, a general possessed of
one. So long as the British confined themselves
to fighting one or two battles, and then, taking
possession of a single town, were content to sit
down and pass their winter in good quarters,
leaving the colonists in undisturbed control of all
the rest of the country, there was nothing to be

204 GEORGE WASHINGTON

feared. The result of such campaigning as this
could not be doubtful for a moment to, any clear-
sighted man. But when a plan was on foot,
which, if successful, meant the control of the lakes
and the Hudson, and of a line of communication
from the north to the great colonial seaport, the
case was very different. Such a campaign as this
would cause the complete severance of New Eng-
land, the chief source for men and supplies, from
the rest of the colonies. It promised the mastery,
not of a town, but of half a dozen States, and
this to the American cause probably would be
ruin.

So strongly and clearly did Washington feel all
this that his counter-plan was at once ready, and
before people had fairly grasped the idea that
there was to be a northern invasion, he was send-
ing, early in March, urgent letters to New Eng-
land to rouse up the militia and have them in
readiness to march at a moment's notice. To
Schuyler, in command of the northern depart-
ment, he began now to write constantly, and to
unfold the methods which must be pursued in
order to compass the defeat of the invaders. His
object was to delay the army of Burgoyne by
every possible device, while steadily avoiding a
pitched battle. Then the militia and hardy farm-
ers of New England and New York were to be
rallied, and were to fall upon the flank and rear
of the British, harass them constantly, cut off their
outlying parties, and finally hem them in and

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 205

destroy them. If the army and people of the
North could only be left undisturbed, it is evident
from his letters that Washington felt no doubt as
to the result in that quarter.

But the North included only half the conditions
essential to success. The grave danger feared by
Washington was that Howe would understand the
situation, and seeing his opportunity, would throw
everything else aside, and marching northward
with twenty thousand men, would make himself
master of the Hudson, effect a junction with Bur-
goyne at Albany, and so cut the colonies in twain.
From all he could learn, and from his knowledge
of his opponents' character, Washington felt sat-
isfied that Howe intended to capture Philadelphia,
advancing, probably, through the Jerseys. Yet,
despite his well-reasoned judgment on this point,
it seemed so incredible that any soldier could fail
to see that decisive victory lay in the north, and in
a junction with Burgoyne, that Washington could
not really and fully believe in such fatuity until
he knew that Howe was actually landing at the
Head of Elk. This is the reason for the anxiety
displayed in the correspondence of that summer,
for the changing and shifting movements, and for
the obvious hesitation of opinion, so unusual with
Washington at any time. Be it remembered,
moreover, that it was an awful doubt which went
to bed and got up and walked with him through
all those long nights and days. If Howe, the dull
and lethargic, should awake from his dream of

206 GEORGE WASHINGTON

conquering America by taking now and again an
isolated town, and should break for the north with
twenty thousand men, the fortunes of the young
republic would come to their severest test.

In that event, Washington knew well enough
what he meant to do. He would march his main
army to the Hudson, unite with the strong body
of troops which he kept there constantly, contest
every inch of the country and the river with
Howe, and keep him at all hazards from getting to
Albany. But he also knew well that if this were
done the odds would be fearfully against him, for
Howe would then not only outnumber him very
greatly, but there would be ample time for the
British to act, and but a short distance to be cov-
ered. We can imagine, therefore, his profound
sense of relief when he found that Howe and his
army were really south of Philadelphia, after a
waste of many precious weeks. He could now
devote himself single-hearted to the defense of the
city, for distance and time were at last on his side,
and all that remained was to fight Howe so hard
and steadily that neither in victory nor defeat
would he remember Burgoyne. Pitt said that he
would conquer Canada on the plains of Germany,
and Burgoyne was compelled to surrender in large
measure by the campaign of Washington in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania.

If we study carefully Washington's correspond-
ence during that eventful summer, grouping to-
gether that relating to the northern campaign, and

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 207

comparing it with that which dealt with the affairs
of his own army, all that has just been said comes
out with entire clearness, and it is astonishing to
see how exactly events justified his foresight. If
he could only hold Howe in the south, he was
quite willing to trust Burgoyne to the rising of
the people and to the northern wilderness. Every
effort he made was in this direction, beginning, as
has been said, by his appeals to the New England
governors in March. Schuyler, on his part, was
thoroughly imbued with Washington's other lead-
ing idea, that the one way to victory was by
retarding the enemy. At the outset everything
went utterly and disastrously wrong. Washing-
ton counted on an obstinate struggle, and a long
delay at Ticonderoga, for he had not been on the
ground, and could not imagine that our officers
would fortify everything but the one commanding
point.

The loss of the forts appalled the country and
disappointed Washington, but did not shake his
nerve for an instant. He wrote to Schuyler:
" This stroke is severe indeed, and has distressed
us much. But notwithstanding things at present
have a dark and gloomy aspect, I hope a spirited
opposition will check the progress of General Bur-
goyne 's army, and that the confidence derived
from his success will hurry him into measures that
will, in their consequences, be favorable to us.
We should never despair; our situation has before
been unpromising, and has changed for the better ;

208 GEORGE WASHINGTON

so I trust it will again. If new difficulties arise
we must only put forth new exertions, and pro-
portion our efforts to the exigency of the times."
Even after this seemingly crushing defeat he still
felt sure of Burgoyne, so long as he was unsup-
ported. Suiting the action to the word, he again
bent every nerve to rouse New England and get
out her militia. When he was satisfied that Howe
was landing below Philadelphia, the first thing he
did was to send forth the same cry in the same
quarter, to bring out more men against Burgoyne.
He showed, too, the utmost generosity toward the
northern army, sending thither all the troops he
could possibly spare, and even parting with his
favorite corps of Morgan's riflemen. Despite his
liberality, the commanders in the north were un-
reasonable in their demands, and when they asked
too much, Washington flatly declined to send
more men, for he would not weaken himself un-
duly, and he knew what they did not see, that the
fate of the northern invasion turned largely on his
own ability to cope with Howe.

The blame for the loss of the forts fell of course
upon Schuyler, who was none too popular in Con-
gress, and who with St. Clair was accordingly
made a scape-goat. Congress voted that Wash-
ington should appoint a new commander, and the
New England delegates visited him to urge the
selection of Gates. This task Washington re-
fused to perform, alleging as a reason that the
northern department had always been considered

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 209

a separate command, and that he had never done
more than advise. These reasons do not look
very weighty or very strong, and it is not quite
clear what the underlying motive was. Washing-
ton never shrank from responsibility, and he knew
very well that he could pick out the best man
more unerringly than Congress. But he also saw
that Congress favored Gates, whom he would not
have chosen, and he therefore probably felt that it
was more important to have some one whom New
England believed in and approved than a better
soldier who would have been unwelcome to her
representatives. It is certain that he would not
have acted thus, had he thought that generalship
was an important element in the problem; but he
relied on a popular uprising, and not on the com-
mander, to defeat Burgoyne. He may have
thought, too, that it was a mistake to relieve
Schuyler, who was working in the directions
which he had pointed out, and who, if not a great
soldier, was a brave, high-minded, and sensible
man, devoted to his chief and to the country. It
was Schuyler indeed who, by his persistent labor
in breaking down bridges, tearing up roads, and
felling trees, while he gathered men industriously
in all directions, did more than any one else at
that moment to prepare the way for an ultimate
victory.

Whatever his feelings may have been in regard
to the command of the northern department,
Washington made no change in his own course

210 GEORGE WASHINGTON

after Gates had been appointed. He knew that
Gates was at least harmless, and not likely to
block the natural course of events. He therefore
felt free to press his own policy without cessation,
and without apprehension. He took care that
Lincoln and Arnold should be there to look after
the New England militia, and he wrote to Gover-
nor Clinton, in whose energy and courage he had
great confidence, to rouse up the men of New
York. He suggested the points of attack, and at
every moment advised and counseled and watched,
holding all the while a firm grip on Howe. Slowly
and surely the net, thus painfully set, tightened
round Burgoyne. The New Englanders whipped
one division at Bennington, and the New Yorkers
shattered another at Oriskany and Fort Schuyler.
The country people turned out in defense of their
invaded homes and poured into the American
camp. Burgoyne struggled and advanced, fought
and retreated. Gates, stupid, lethargic, and good-
natured, did nothing, but there was no need of
generalship; and Arnold was there, turbulent and
quarrelsome, but full of daring ; and Morgan, too,
equally ready; and they and others did all the
necessary fighting.

Poor Burgoyne, a brave gentleman, if not a
great general, had the misfortune to be a clever
man in the service of a stupid administration, and
he met the fate usually meted out under such cir-
cumstances to men of ideas. Howe went off to
the conquest of Philadelphia, Clinton made a brief

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 211

burning and 'plundering raid up the river, and the
northern invasion, which really had meaning, was
left to its fate. It was a hard fate, but there was
no escape. Outnumbered, beaten, and caught,
Burgoyne surrendered. If there had been a fight-
ing-man at the head of the American army, the
British would have surrendered as prisoners of
war, and not on conditions. Schuyler, we may
be sure, whatever his failings, would never have
let them off so easily. But it was sufficient as it
was. The wilderness, and the militia of New
York and New England swarming to the defense
of their homes, had done the work. It all fell
out just as Washington had foreseen and planned,
and England, despising her enemy and their com-
mander, saw one of her armies surrender, and
might have known, if she had had the wit, that
the colonies were now lost forever. The Revolu-
tion had been saved at Trenton ; it was established
at Saratoga. In the one case it was the direct,
in the other the indirect, work of Washington.

Poor Gates, with his dull brain turning under
the impression that this crowning mercy had been
his own doing, lost his head, forgot that there was
a commander-in-chief, and sending his news to
Congress, left Washington to find out from chance
rumors, and a tardy letter from Putnam, that
Burgoyne had actually surrendered. This gross
slight, however, had deeper roots than the mere
exultation of victory acting on a heavy and com-
mon mind. It represented a hostile feeling which

212 GEORGE WASHINGTON

had been slowly increasing for some time, which
had been carefully nurtured by those interested
in its growth, and which blossomed rapidly in the
heated air of military triumph. From the outset
it had been Washington's business to fight the
enemy, manage the army, deal with Congress,
and consider in all its bearings the political situa-
tion at home and abroad ; but he was now called
upon to meet a trouble outside the line of duty,
and to face attacks from within, which, ideally
speaking, ought never to have existed, but which,
in view of our very fallible humanity, were certain
to come sooner or later. Much domestic malice
Washington was destined to encounter in the
later years of political strife, but this was the only
instance in his military career where enmity came
to overt action and open speech. The first and
the last of its kind, this assault upon him has
much interest, for a strong light is thrown upon
his character by studying him, thus beset, and by
seeing just how he passed through this most try-
ing and disagreeable of ordeals.

The germ of the difficulties was to be found
where we should expect it, in the differences be-
tween the men of speech and the man of action,
between the lawmakers and the soldier. Wash-
ington had been obliged to tell Congress a great
many plain and unpleasant truths. It was part
of his duty, and he did it accordingly. He was
always dignified, calm, and courteous, but he had
an alarmingly direct way with him, especially

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 213

when he was annoyed. He was simple almost to
bluntness, but now and then would use a grave
irony which must have made listening ears tingle.
Congress was patriotic and well-intentioned, and
on the whole stood bravely by its general, but it
was unversed in war, very impatient, and at times
wildly impracticable. Here is a letter which de-
picts the situation, and the relation between the
general and his rulers, with great clearness.
March 14, 1777, Washington wrote to the Presi-
dent: "Could I accomplish the important objects
so eagerly wished by Congress, — ' confining the
enemy within their present quarters, preventing
their getting supplies from the country, and totally
subduing them before they are reinforced,' — I
should be happy indeed. But what prospect or
hope can there be of my effecting so desirable a
work at this time?"

We can imagine how exasperating such requests
and suggestions must have been. It was very
much as if Congress had said: "Good General,
bring in the Atlantic tides and drown the enemy;
or pluck the moon from the sky and give it to us,
as a mark of your loyalty." Such requests are
not soothing to any man struggling his best with
great anxieties, and with a host of petty cares.
Washington, nevertheless, kept his temper, and
replied only by setting down a few hard facts
which answered the demands of Congress in a
final manner, and with all the sting of truth.
Thus a little irritation had been generated in

214 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Congress against the general, and there were some
members who developed a good deal of pronounced
hostility. Sam Adams, a born agitator and a
trained politician, unequaled almost in our his-
tory as an organizer and manager of men, able,
narrow, coldly fierce, the man of the town meet-
ing and the caucus, had no possibility of intel-
lectual sympathy with the silent, patient, hard-
gripping soldier, hemmed with difficulties, but
ever moving straight forward to his object, with
occasional wild gusts of reckless fighting passion.
John Adams, too, brilliant of speech and pen,
ardent, patriotic, and high-minded, was, in his
way, out of touch with Washington. Although
he moved Washington's appointment, he began
almost immediately to find fault with him, an
exercise to which he was extremely prone. Inas-
much as he could see how things ought to be
done, he could not understand why they were not
done in that way at once, for he had a fine forget-
fulness of other people's difficulties, as is the case
with most of us. The New England representa-
tives generally took their cue from these two,
especially James Lovell, who carried his ideas into
action, and obtained a little niche in the temple of
fame by making himself disagreeably conspicuous
in the intrigue against the commander-in-chief,
when it finally developed.

There were others, too, outside New England
who were discontented, and among them Richard
Henry Lee, from the General's own State. He

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 215

was evidently critical and somewhat unfriendly at
this time, although the reasons for his being so
are not now very distinct. Then there was Mr.
Clark of New Jersey, an excellent man, who
thought the General was invading popular rights ;
and to him others might be added who vaguely
felt that things ought to be better than they were.
This party, adverse to Washington, obtained the
appointment of Gates to the northern department,
under whom the army won a great victory, and
they were correspondingly happy. John Adams
wrote his wife that one cause of thanksgiving was
that the tide had not been turned by the com-
mander-in-chief and southern troops, for the adu-
lation would have been intolerable ; and that a man
may be wise and virtuous and not a deity.

Here, so far as the leading and influential men
were concerned, the matter would have dropped,
probably; but there were lesser men like Lovell
who were much encouraged by the surrender of
Burgoyne, and who thought that they now might
supplant Washington with Gates. Before long,
too, they found in the army itself some active and
not over-scrupulous allies. The most conspicu-
ous figure among the military malcontents was
Gates himself, who, although sluggish in all
things, still had a keen eye for his own advance-
ment. He showed plainly how much his head
had been turned by the victory at Saratoga when
he failed to inform Washington of the fact, and
when he afterward delayed sending back troops

216 GEORGE WASHINGTON

until he was driven to it by the determined energy
of Hamilton, who was sent to bring him to reason.
Next in importance to Gates was Thomas Mifflin,
an ardent patriot, but a rather light-headed per-
son, who espoused the opposition to Washington
for causes now somewhat misty, but among which
personal vanity played no inconsiderable part.
About these two leaders gathered a certain num-
ber of inferior officers of no great moment then or
since.

The active and moving spirit in the party, how-
ever, was one Conway, an Irish adventurer, who
made himself so prominent that the whole affair
passed into history bearing his name, and the
"Conway cabal" has obtained an enduring noto-
riety which its hero never acquired by any public
services. Conway was one of the foreign officers
who had gained the favor of Congress and held
the rank of brigadier-general, but this by no
means filled the measure of his pretensions, and
when De Kalb was made a major-general Conway
immediately started forward with claims to the
same rank. He received strong support from the
factious opposition, and there was so much stir
that Washington sharply interfered, for to his
general objection to these lavish gifts of excessive
rank was added an especial distrust in this par-
ticular case. In his calm way he had evidently
observed Conway, and with his unerring judgment
of men had found him wanting. "I may add,"
he wrote to Lee, "and I think with truth, that

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 217

it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the
army. Upon so interesting a subject I must speak
plainly. General Conway's merit then as an offi-
cer, and his importance in this army, exist more
in his own imagination than in reality.'' This
plain talk soon reached Conway, drove him at
once into furious opposition, and caused him to
impart to the faction a cohesion and vigor which
they had before lacked. Circumstances favored
them. The victory at Saratoga gave them some-
thing tangible to go upon, and the first move was
made when Gates failed to inform Washington of
the surrender, and then held back the troops sent
for so urgently by the commander-in-chief, who
had sacrificed so much from his own army to se-
cure that of the north.

At this very moment, indeed, when Washing-
ton was calling for troops, he was struggling with
the utmost tenacity to hold control of the Dela-
ware. He made every arrangement possible to
maintain the forts, and the first assaults upon
them were repulsed with great slaughter, the Brit-
ish in the attack on Fort Mercer losing Count
Donop, the leader, and four hundred men. Then
came a breathing space, and then the attacks were
renewed, supported by vessels, and both forts were
abandoned after the works had been leveled to
the ground by the enemy's fire. Meanwhile Ham-
ilton, sent to the north, had done his work; Gates
had been stirred, and Putnam, well-meaning but
stubborn, had been sharply brought to his bear-

218 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ings. Reinforcements had come, and Washington
meditated an attack on Philadelphia. There was
a good deal of clamor for something brilliant and
decisive, for both the army and the public were a
little dizzy from the effects of Saratoga, and with
sublime blindness to different conditions, could
not see why the same performance should not be
repeated to order everywhere else. To oppose
this wish was trying, doubly trying to a man eager
to fight, and with his full share of the very human
desire to be as successful as his neighbor. It
required great nerve to say No ; but Washington
did not lack that quality, and as general and
statesman he reconnoitred the enemy's works,
weighed the chances, said No decisively, and took
up an almost impregnable position at White
Marsh. Thereupon Howe announced that he
would drive Washington beyond the mountains,
and on December 4 he approached the Ameri-
can lines with this highly proper purpose. There
was some skirmishing along the foot of the hills
of an unimportant character, and on the third
day Washington, in high spirits, thought an at-
tack would be made, and rode among the soldiers
directing and encouraging them. Nothing came
of it, however, but more skirmishing, and the next
day Howe marched back to Philadelphia. He
had offered battle in all ways, he had invited
action; but again, with the same pressure both
from his own spirit and from public opinion,
Washington had said No. On his own ground he

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 219

was more than ready to fight Howe, but despite
the terrible temptation he would fight on no other.
Not the least brilliant exploit of Wellington was
the retreat to the shrewdly prepared lines of
Torres Vedras, and one of the most difficult suc-
cesses of Washington was his double refusal to
fight as the year 1777 drew to a close.

Like most right and wise things, Washington's
action looks now, a century later, so plainly sensi-
ble that it is hard to imagine how any one could
have questioned it; and one cannot, without a
great effort, realize the awful strain upon will and
temper involved in thus refusing battle. If the
proposed attack on Philadelphia had failed, or if
our army had come down from the hills and been
beaten in the fields below, no American army
would have remained. The army of the north, of
which men were talking so proudly, had done its
work and dispersed. The fate of the Revolution
rested where it had been from the beginning, with
Washington and his soldiers. Drive them beyond
the mountains and there was no other army to fall
back upon. On their existence everything hinged,
and when Howe got back to Philadelphia, there
they were still existent, still coherent, hovering on
his flank, cooping him up in his lines, and leaving
him master of little more than the ground his
men encamped upon, and the streets his sentinels
patrolled. When Franklin was told in Paris that
Howe had taken Philadelphia, his reply was,
"Philadelphia has taken Howe."

220 GEORGE WASHINGTON

But, with the exception of Franklin, contempo-
rary opinion in the month of December, 1777, was
very different from that of to-day, and the cabal
had been at work ever since the commander-in-
chief had stepped between Conway and the exor-
bitant rank he coveted. Washington, indeed,
was perfectly aware of what was going on. He
was quiet and dignified, impassive and silent, but
he knew when men, whether great or small, were
plotting against him, and he watched them with
the same keenness as he did Howe and the British.

In the midst of his struggle to hold the Dela-
ware forts, and of his efforts to get back his troops
from the north, a story came to him that arrested
his attention. Wilkinson, of Gates's staff, had
come to Congress with the news of the surrender.
He had been fifteen days on the road and three
days getting his papers in order, and when it was
proposed to give him a sword, Roger Sherman
suggested that they had better "give the lad a
pair of spurs." This thrust and some delay seem
to have nettled Wilkinson, who was swelling with
importance, and although he was finally made a
brigadier-general, he rode off to the north much
ruffled. In later years Wilkinson was secretive
enough; but in his hot youth he could not hold
his tongue, and on his way back to Gates he
talked. What he said was marked and carried
to headquarters, and on November 9 Washing-
ton wrote to Conway : —

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 221

" A letter which I received last night contained the
following paragraph, — ' In a letter from General Con-
way to General Gates he says, "Heaven has determined
to save your country, or a weak general and bad coun-
sellors would have ruined it." I am, sir, your humble
servant,' " etc.

This curt note fell upon Conway with stunning
effect. It is said that he tried to apologize, and
he certainly resigned. As for Gates, he fell to
writing letters filled with expressions of wonder as
to who had betrayed him, and writhed most piti-
ably under the exposure. Washington's replies
are models of cold dignity, and the calm indiffer-
ence with which he treated the whole matter,
while holding Gates to the point with relentless
grasp, is very interesting. The cabal was seri-
ously shaken by this sudden blow. It must have
dawned upon them dimly that they might have
mistaken their man, and that the silent soldier
was perhaps not so easy to disposfc of by an in-
trigue as they had fancied. Nevertheless, they
rallied, and taking advantage of the feeling in
Congress created by Burgoyne's surrender, they
set to work to get control of military matters.
The board of war was enlarged to five, with Gates
at its head and Mifflin a member, and, thus con-
stituted, it proceeded to make Conway inspector-
general, with the rank of major-general. This,
after Conway's conduct, was a direct insult to
Washington, and marks the highest point attained
by his opponents.

222 GEORGE WASHINGTON

In Congress, too, they became more active, and
John Jay said that there was in that body a party
bitterly hostile to Washington. We know little
of the members of that faction now, for they never
took the trouble to refer to the matter in after
years, and did everything that silence could do to
have it all forgotten. But the party existed none
the less, and significant letters have come down
to us, one of them written by Lovell, and two
anonymous, addressed respectively to Patrick
Henry and to Laurens, then president, which
show a bitter and vindictive spirit, and breathe
but one purpose. The same thought is constantly
reiterated, that with a good general the northern
army had won a great victory, and that the main
army, if commanded in the same way, would do
likewise. The plan was simple and coherent.
The cabal wished to drive Washington out of
power and replace him with Gates. With this
purpose they \£rote to Henry and Laurens ; with
this purpose they made Conway inspector-general.

When they turned from intrigue to action, how-
ever, they began to fail. One of their pet schemes
was the conquest of Canada, and with this object
Lafayette was sent to the lakes, only to find that
no preparations had been made, because the origi-
nators of the idea were ignorant and inefficient.
The expedition promptly collapsed and was aban-
doned, with much instruction in consequence to
Congress and people. Under their control the
commissariat also went hopelessly to pieces, and

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 223

a committee of Congress proceeded to Valley
Forge and found that in this direction, too, the
new managers had grievously failed. Then the
original Conway letter, uncovered so unceremoni^
ously by Washington, kept returning to plague
its author. Gates's correspondence went on all
through the winter, and with every letter Gates
floundered more and more, and Washington's
replies grew more and more freezing and severe.
Gates undertook to throw the blame on Wilkin-
son, who became loftily indignant and challenged
him. The two made up their quarrel very soon in
a ludicrous manner, but Wilkinson in the interval
had an interview with Washington, which revealed
an amount of duplicity and perfidy on the part of
the cabal, so shocking to the former's sensitive
nature, that he resigned his secretaryship of the
board of war on account, as he frankly said, of
the treachery and falsehood of Gates. Such a
quarrel of course hurt the cabal, but it was still
more weakened by Gates himself, whose only idea
seemed to be to supersede Washington by slight-
ing him, refusing troops, and declining to propose
his health at dinner, — methods as unusual as they
were feeble.

The cabal, in fact, was so weak in ability and
character that the moment any responsibility fell
upon its members it was certain to break down,
but the absolutely fatal obstacle to its schemes
was the man it aimed to overthrow. The idea
evidently was that Washington could be driven to

224 GEORGE WASHINGTON

resign. They knew that they could not get either
Congress or public opinion to support them in
removing him, but they believed that a few well-
placed slights and insults would make him remove
himself. It was just here that they made their
mistake. Washington, as they were aware, was
sensitive and high-spirited to the last degree, and
he had no love for office, but he was not one of
those weaklings who leave power and place in a
pet because they are criticised and assailed. He
was not ambitious in the ordinary personal sense,
but he had a passion for success. Whether it was
breaking a horse, or reclaiming land, or fighting
Indians, or saving a state, whatever he set his
hand to, that he carried through to the end. With
him there never was any shadow of turning back.
When, without any self-seeking, he was placed at
the head of the Revolution, he made up his mind
that he would carry it through everything to vic-
tory, if victory were possible. Death or a prison
could stop him, but neither defeat nor neglect, and
still less the forces of intrigue and cabal.

When he wrote to his brother announcing Bur-
goyne's surrender, he had nothing to say of the
slight Gates put upon him, but merely added in
a postscript, "I most devoutly congratulate my
country and every well-wisher to the cause on this
signal stroke of Providence." This was his tone
to every one, both in private and public. His
complaint of not being properly notified he made
to Gates alone, and put it in the form of a rebuke.

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 225

He knew of the movement against him from the
beginning, but apparently the first person he con-
fided in was Conway, when he sent him the brief
note of November 9. Even after the cabal was
fully developed, he wrote about it only once or
twice, when compelled to do so, and there is no
evidence that he ever talked about it except, per-
haps, to a few most intimate friends. In a letter
to Patrick Henry he said that he was obliged to
allow a false impression as to his strength to go
abroad, and that he suffered in consequence ; and
he added, with a little touch of feeling, that while
the yeomanry of New York and New England
poured into the camp of Gates, outnumbering the
enemy two to one, he could get no aid of that sort
from Pennsylvania, and still marvels were de-
manded of him.

Thus he went on his way through the winter,
silent except when obliged to answer some friend,
and always ready to meet his enemies. When
Conway complained to Congress of his reception
at camp, Washington wrote the president that he
was not given to dissimulation, and that he cer-
tainly had been cold in his manner. He wrote to
Lafayette that slander had been busy, and that he
had urged his officers to be cool and dispassionate
as to Conway, adding, "I have no doubt that
everything happens for the best, that we shall tri-
umph over all our misfortunes, and in the end be
happy; when, my dear Marquis, if you will give
me your company in Virginia, we will laugh at

226 GEORGE WASHINGTON

our past difficulties and the folly of others." But
though he wrote thus lightly to his friends, he fol-
lowed Gates sternly enough, and kept that gentle-
man occupied as he drove him from point to point.
Among other things he touched upon Conway's
character with sharp irony, saying, "It is, how-
ever, greatly to be lamented that this adept in
military science did not employ his abilities in the
progress of the campaign, in pointing out those
wise measures which were calculated to give us
4 that degree of success we could reasonably ex-
pect.'"

Poor Gates did not find these letters pleasant
reading, and one more curt note, on February
24, finished the controversy. By that time the
cabal was falling to pieces, and in a little while
was dispersed. Wilkinson's resignation was ac-
cepted, Mifflin was put under Washington's
orders, and Gates was sent to his command in the
north. Conway resigned one day in a pet, and
found his resignation accepted and his power gone
with unpleasant suddenness. He then got into
a quarrel with General Cadwalader on account
of his attacks on the commander-in-chief. The
quarrel ended in a duel. Conway was badly
wounded, and thinking himself dying, wrote a
contrite note of apology to Washington, then re-
covered, left the country, and disappeared from
the ken of history. Thus domestic malice and
the "bitter party" in Congress failed and per-
ished. They had dashed themselves in vain

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 227

against the strong man who held firmly both sol-
diers and people. "While the public are satisfied
with my endeavors, I mean not to shrink from
the cause." So Washington wrote to Gordon as
the cabal was coming to an end, and in that
spirit he crushed silently and thoroughly the fac-
tion that sought to thwart his purpose, and drive
him from office by sneers, slights, and intrigues.

These attacks upon him came at the darkest
moment of his military career. Defeated at
Brandywine and Germantown, he had been forced
from the forts after a desperate struggle, had seen
Philadelphia and the river fall completely into
the hands of the enemy, and, bitterest of all,
he had been obliged to hold back from another
assault on the British lines, and to content himself
with baffling Howe when that gentleman came
out and offered battle. Then the enemy withdrew
to their comfortable quarters, and he was left to
face again the harsh winter and the problem of
existence. It was the same ever recurring effort
to keep the American army, and thereby the
American Revolution, alive. There was nothing
in this task to stir the blood and rouse the heart.
It was merely a question of grim tenacity of pur-
pose and of the ability to comprehend its over-
whelming importance. It was not a work that
appealed to or inspirited any one, and to carry it
through to a successful issue rested with the com-
mander-in-chief alone.

In the frost and snow he withdrew to Valley

228 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Forge, within easy striking distance of Philadel-
phia. He had literally nothing to rely upon but
his own stern will and strong head. His soldiers,
steadily dwindling in numbers, marked their road
to Valley Forge by the blood from their naked
feet. They were destitute and in rags. When
they reached their destination they had no shelter,
and it was only by the energy and ingenuity of
the General that they were led to build huts, and
thus secure a measure of protection against the
weather. There were literally no supplies, and
the Board of War failed completely to remedy the
evil. The army was in such straits that it was
obliged to seize by force the commonest necessa-
ries. This was a desperate expedient and shocked
public opinion, which Washington, as a statesman,
watched and cultivated as an essential element of
success in his difficult business. He disliked to
take extreme measures, but there was nothing else
to be done when his men were starving, when
nearly three thousand of them were unfit for
duty because "barefoot and otherwise naked," and
when a large part of the army were obliged to
sit up all night by the fires for warmth's sake,
having no blankets with which to cover themselves
if they lay down. With nothing to eat, nothing
to burn, nothing wherewith to clothe themselves,
wasting away from exposure and disease, we can
only wonder at the forbearance which stayed the
hand of violent seizure so long. Yet, as Wash-
ington had foreseen, there was even then an outcry

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 229

against him. Nevertheless, his action ultimately
did more good than harm in the very matter of
public opinion, for it opened men's eyes, and led
to some tardy improvements and some increased
effort.

Worse even than this criticism was the remon-
strance of the legislature of Pennsylvania against
the going into winter-quarters. They expected
Washington to keep the open field, and even to
attack the British, with his starving, ragged army,
in all the severity of a northern winter. They
had failed him at every point and in every pro-
mise, in men, clothing, and supplies. They were
not content that he covered their State and kept
the Revolution alive among the huts of Valley
Forge. They wished the impossible. They asked
for the moon, and then cried out because it was
not given to them. It was a stupid, unkind thing
to do, and Washington answered their complaints
in a letter to the president of Congress. After
setting forth the shortcomings of the Pennsylva-
nians in the very plainest of plain English, he
said: "But what makes this matter still more
extraordinary in my eye is that these very gentle-
men should think a winter's campaign, and the
covering of these States from the invasion of an
enemy, so easy and practicable a business. I can
answer those gentlemen, that it is a much easier
and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances
in a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to
occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost

230 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and snow, without clothes or blankets. However,
although they seem to have little feeling for the
naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabund-
antly for them, and from my soul I pity those
miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve
or prevent."

This was not a safe man for the gentlemen of
Pennsylvania to cross too far, nor could they
swerve him, with all his sense of public opinion,
one jot from what he meant to do. In the stern
rebuke, and in the deep pathos of these sentences,
we catch a glimpse of the silent and self-control] ed
man breaking out for a moment as he thinks of
his faithful and suffering men. Whatever hap-
pened, he would hold them together, for in this
black time we detect the fear which haunted him,
that the people at large might give way. He was
determined on independence. He felt a keen
hatred against England for her whole conduct
toward America, and this hatred was sharpened
by the efforts of the English to injure him per-
sonally by forged letters and other despicable con-
trivances. He was resolved that England should
never prevail, and his language in regard to her
has a fierceness of tone which is full of meaning.
He was bent, also, on success, and if under the
long strain the people should weaken or waver,
he was determined to maintain the army at all
hazards.

So, while he struggled against cold and hunger
and destitution, while he contended with faction

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 231

at home and lukewarmness in the administration
of the war, even then, in the midst of these trials,
he was devising a new system for the organiza-
tion and permanence of his forces. Congress
meddled with the matter of prisoners and with
the promotion of officers, and he argued with and
checked them, and still pressed on in his plans.
He insisted that officers must have better provi-
sion, for they had begun to resign. "You must
appeal to their interest as well as to their patriot-
ism," he wrote, "and you must give them half-
pay and full pay in proper measure." "You must
follow the same policy with the men," he said;
"you must have done with short enlistments. In
a word, gentlemen, you must give me an army, a
lasting, enduring, continental army, for therein
lies independence." * It all comes out now,
through the dust of details and annoyances,
through the misery and suffering of that wretched
winter, through the shrill cries of ignorance and
hostility, — the great, clear, strong policy which
meant to substitute an army for militia, and
thereby secure victory and independence. It is
the burden of all his letters to the governors of
States, and to his officers everywhere. "I will
hold the army together," he said, "but you on all
sides must help me build it up."1

Thus with much strenuous labor and many
fervent appeals he held his army together in some

1 These two quotations are not literal, of course, but give the
substance of many letters.

232 GEORGE WASHINGTON

way, and slowly improved it. His system began
to be put in force, his reiterated lessons were
coming home to Congress, and his reforms and
suggestions were in some measure adopted. Un-
der the sound and trained guidance of Baron
Steuben a drill and discipline were introduced,
which soon showed marked results. Greene suc-
ceeded Mifflin as quartermaster - general, and
brought order out of chaos. The Conway cabal
went to pieces, and as spring opened Washington
began to see light once more. To have held on
through that winter was a great feat, but to have
built up and improved the army at such a time
was much more wonderful. It shows a greatness
of character and a force of will rarer than military
genius, and enables us to understand better, per-
haps, than almost any of his victories, why it was
that the success of the Revolution lay in such large
measure in the hands of one man.

After Howe's withdrawal from the Jerseys in
the previous year, a contemporary wrote that
Washington was left with the remnants of an
army "to scuffle for liberty." The winter had
passed, and he was prepared to scuffle again. On
May 11 Sir Henry Clinton relieved Sir William
Howe at Philadelphia, and the latter took his
departure in a blaze of mock glory and resplen-
dent millinery, known as the Mischianza, a fit
close to a career of failure, which he was too dull
to appreciate. The new commander was more
active than his predecessor, but no cleverer, and

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 233

no better fitted to cope with Washington. It was
another characteristic choice on the part of the
British ministry, who could never muster enough
intellect to understand that the Americans would
fight, and that they were led by a really great
soldier. The coming of Clinton did not alter
existing conditions.

Expecting a movement by the enemy, Wash-
ington sent Lafayette forward to watch Philadel-
phia. Clinton and Howe, eager for a victory
before departure, determined to cut him off, and
by a rapid movement nearly succeeded in so doing.
Timely information, presence of mind, and quick-
ness alone enabled the young Frenchman to es-
cape, narrowly but completely. Meantime, a
cause for delay, that curse of the British through-
out the war, supervened. A peace commission,
consisting of the Earl of Carlisle, William Eden,
and Governor Johnstone, arrived. They were
excellent men, but they came too late. Their
propositions three years before would have been
well enough, but as it was they were worse than
nothing. Coolly received, they held a fruitless
interview with a committee of Congress, tried to
bribe and intrigue, found that their own army had
been already ordered to evacuate Philadelphia
without their knowledge, and finally gave up their
task in angry despair, and returned to England to
join in the chorus of fault-finding which was be-
ginning to sound very loud in ministerial ears.

Meanwhile, Washington waited and watched,

234 GEORGE WASHINGTON

puzzled by the delay, and hoping only to harass
Sir Henry with militia on the march to New
York. But as the days slipped by, the Ameri-
cans grew stronger, while the British had been
weakened by wholesale desertions. When he
finally started, he had with him probably sixteen
to seventeen thousand men, while the Americans
had apparently at least thirteen thousand, nearly
all continental troops.1 Under these circum-
stances, Washington determined to bring on a
battle. He was thwarted at the outset by his
officers, as was wont to be the case. Lee had
returned more whimsical than ever, and at the
moment was strongly adverse to an attack, and
was full of wise saws about building a bridge
of gold for the flying enemy. The ascendancy
which, as an English officer, he still retained
enabled him to get a certain following, and the
councils of war which were held compared unfa-
vorably, as Hamilton put it, with the deliberations
of midwives. Washington was harassed of course
by all this, but he did not stay his purpose, and

1 The authorities are hopelessly conflicting as to the numbers
on both sides. The British returns on March 26 showed over 19,000
men. They had since that date been weakened by desertions,
but to what extent we can only conjecture. The detachments to
Florida and the West Indies ordered from England do not appear
to have taken place. The estimate of 16,000 to 17,000 seems the
most reasonable. Washington returned his rank and file as just
over 10,000, which would indicate a total force of 13,000 to 14,000,
possibly more. Washington clearly underestimated the enemy,
and the best conclusion seems to be that they were nearly matched
in numbers, with a slight inferiority on the American side.

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 235

as soon as he knew that Clinton actually had
marched, he broke camp at Valley Forge and
started in pursuit. There were more councils of
an old-womanish character, but finally Washing-
ton took the matter into his own hands, and
ordered forth a strong detachment to attack the
British rear-guard. They set out on the 25th,
and as Lee, to whom the command belonged, did
not care to go, Lafayette was put in charge. As
soon as Lafayette had departed, however, Lee
changed his mind, and insisted that all the detach-
ments in front, amounting to five thousand men,
formed a division so large that it was unjust not
to give him the command. Washington, there-
fore, sent him forward next day with two addi-
tional brigades, and then Lee by seniority took
command on the 27th of the entire advance.

In the evening of that day, Washington came
up, reconnoitred the enemy, and saw that, although
their position was a strong one, another day's un-
molested march would make it still stronger. He
therefore resolved to attack the next morning, and
gave Lee then and there explicit orders to that
effect. In the early dawn he dispatched similar
orders, but Lee apparently did nothing except
move feebly forward, saying to Lafayette, "You
don't know the British soldiers ; we cannot stand
against them." He made a weak attempt to cut
off a covering party, marched and countermarched,
ordered and countermanded, until Lafayette and
Wayne, eager to fight, knew not what to do, and
aent hot messages to Washington to come to them.

236 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Thus hesitating and confused, Lee permitted
Clinton to get his baggage and train to the front,
and to mass all his best troops in the rear under
Cornwallis, who then advanced against the Ameri-
can lines. Now there were no orders at all, and
the troops did not know what to do, or where to
go. They stood still, then began to fall back,
and then to retreat. A very little more and there
would have been a rout. As it was, Washington
alone prevented disaster. His early reports from
the front from Dickinson's outlying party, and
from Lee himself, were all favorable. Then he
heard the firing, and putting the main army in
motion, he rode rapidly forward. First he en-
countered a straggler, who talked of defeat. He
could not believe it, and the fellow was pushed
aside and silenced. Then came another and an-
other, all with songs of death. Finally, officers
and regiments began to come. No one knew why
they fled, or what had happened. As the ill tid-
ings grew thicker, Washington spurred sharper
and rode faster through the deep sand, and under
the blazing midsummer sun. At last he met Lee
and the main body all in full retreat. He rode
straight at Lee, savage with anger, not pleasant to
look at, one may guess, and asked fiercely and
with a deep oath, tradition says, what it all
meant. Lee was no coward, and did not usually
lack for words. He was, too, a hardened man of
the world, and, in the phrase of that day, impu-
dent to boot. But then and there he stammered

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 237

and hesitated. The fierce question was repeated.
Lee gathered himself and tried to excuse and pal-
liate what had happened, but although the brief
words that followed are variously reported to us
across the century, we know that Washington
rebuked him in such a way, and with such passion,
that all was over between them. Lee had com-
mitted the one unpardonable sin in the eyes of his
commander. He had failed to fight when the
enemy was upon him. He had disobeyed orders
and retreated. It was the end of him. He went
to the rear, thence to a court-martial, thence to
dismissal and to a solitary life with a well-founded
suspicion of treason hanging about him. He was
an intelligent, quick-witted, unstable man, much
overrated because he was an English officer among
a colonial people. He was ever treated magnan-
imously by Washington after the day of battle at
Monmouth, but he then disappeared from the lat-
ter's life.

When Lee bowed before the storm and stepped
aside, Washington was left to deal with the dan-
ger and confusion around him. Thus did he tell
the story afterwards to his brother: "A retreat,
however, was the fact, be the causes what they
may ; and the disorder arising from it would have
proved fatal to the army, had not that bountiful
Providence, which has never failed us in the hour
of distress, enabled me to form a regiment or two
(of those that were retreating) in the face of the
enemy, and under their fire; by which means a

•

238 GEORGE WASHINGTON

stand was made long enough (the place through
which the enemy were pressing being narrow) to
form the troops, that were advancing, upon an
advantageous piece of ground in the rear." We
cannot add much to these simple and modest
words, for they tell the whole story. Having put
Lee aside, Washington rallied the broken troops,
brought them into position, turned them back,
and held the enemy in check. It was not an easy
feat, but it was done, and when Lee's division
again fell back in good order the main army
was in position, and the action became general.
The British were repulsed, and then Washington,
taking the offensive, drove them back until he
occupied the battlefield of the morning. Night
came upon him still advancing. He halted his
army, lay down under a tree, his soldiers lying
on their arms about him, and planned a fresh at-
tack, to be made at daylight. But when the dawn
came it was seen that the British had crept off,
and were far on their road. The heat prevented
a rapid pursuit, and Clinton got into New York.
Between there and Philadelphia he had lost at
least two thousand men by desertions in addition
to nearly five hundred who fell at Monmouth.

It is worth while to pause a moment and com-
pare this battle with the rout of Long Island, the
surprise at the Brandywine, and the fatal unsteadi-
ness at Germantown. Here, too, a check was
received at the outset, owing to blundering which
no one could have foreseen. The troops, confused

MALICE DOMESTIC, AND FOREIGN LEVY 239

and without orders, began to retreat, but without
panic or disorder. The moment Washington
appeared they rallied, returned to the field, showed
perfect steadiness, and the victory was won.
Monmouth has never been one of the famous
battles of the Revolution, and yet there is no other
which can compare with it as an illustration of
Washington's ability as a soldier. It was not so
much the way in which it was fought, although
that was fine enough, that its importance lies as
in the evidence which it gives of the way in which
Washington, after a series of defeats, during a
winter of terrible suffering and privation, had yet
developed his ragged volunteers into a well-disci-
plined and effective army. The battle was a vic-
tory, but the existence and the quality of the army
that won it were a far greater triumph.

The dreary winter at Valley Forge had indeed
borne fruit. With a slight numerical superiority
Washington had fought the British in the open
field, and fairly defeated them. "Clinton gained
no advantage," said the great Frederic, "except
to reach New York with the wreck of his army ;
America is probably lost for England." Another
year had passed, and England had lost an army,
and still held what she had before, the city of New
York. Washington was in the field with a better
army than ever, and an army flushed with a vic-
tory which had been achieved after difficulties and
trials such as no one now can rightly picture or
describe. The American Revolution was ad van-

240 GEORGE WASHINGTON

cing, held firm by the master-hand of its leader.
Into it, during these days of struggle and of
battle, a new element had come, and the next step
is to see how Washington dealt with the fresh
conditions upon which the great conflict had
entered.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ALLIES

On May 4, 1778, Congress ratified the trea-
ties of commerce and alliance with France. On
the 6th, Washington, waiting at Valley Forge for
the British to start from Philadelphia, caused his
army, drawn out on parade, to celebrate the
great event with cheers and with salvos of artil-
lery and musketry. The alliance deserved cheers
and celebration, for it marked a long step onward
in the Revolution. It showed that America had
demonstrated to Europe that she could win inde-
pendence, and it had been proved to the tradi-
tional enemy of England that the time had come
when it would be profitable to help the revolted
colonies. But the alliance brought troubles as
well as blessings in its train. It induced a relax-
ation in popular energy, and carried with it new
and difficult problems for the commander-in-chief.
The successful management of allies, and of allied
forces, had been one of the severest tests of the
statesmanship of William III., and had consti-
tuted one of the principal glories of Marlborough.
A similar problem now confronted the American
general.

242 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington was free from the diplomatic and
political portion of the business, but the military
and popular part fell wholly into his hands, and
demanded the exercise of talents entirely different
from those of either a general or an administrator.
It has been not infrequently written more or less
plainly, and it is constantly said, that Washington
was great in character, but that in brains he was
not far above the commonplace. It is even hinted
sometimes that the father of his country was a
dull man, a notion which we shall have occasion
to examine more fully further on. At this point
let the criticism be remembered merely in connec-
tion with the fact that to cooperate with allies in
military matters demands tact, quick perception,
firmness, and patience. In a word, it is a task
which calls for the finest and most highly trained
intellectual powers, and of which the difficulty is
enhanced a thousandfold when the allies are on
the one side, an old, aristocratic, punctilious peo-
ple, and on the other, colonists utterly devoid of
tradition, etiquette, or fixed habits, and very much
accustomed to go their own way and speak their
own minds with careless freedom. With this
problem Washington was obliged suddenly to
deal, both in ill success and good success, as well
as in many attempts which came to nothing. Let
us see how he solved it at the very outset, when
everything went most perversely wrong.

On July 14 he heard that D'Estaing's fleet was
off the coast, and at once, without a trace of ela-

THE ALLIES 243

tion or excitement, he began to consider the pos-
sibility of intercepting the British fleet expected to
arrive shortly from Cork. As soon as D'Estaing
was within reach he sent two of his aides on board
the flagship, and at once opened a correspondence
with his ally. These letters of welcome, and those
of suggestion which followed, are models, in their
way, of what such letters ought always to be.
They were perfectly adapted to satisfy the etiquette
and the love of good manners of the French, and
yet there was not a trace of anything like servility,
or of an effusive gratitude which outran the favors
granted. They combined stately courtesy with
simple dignity, and are phrased with a sober grace
which shows the thoroughly strong man, as capable
to turn a sentence, if need be, as to rally retreating
soldiers in the face of the enemy.

In this first meeting of the allies nothing hap-
pened fortunately. D'Estaing had had a long
passage, and was too late to cut off Lord Howe at
the Delaware. Then he turned to New York, and
was too late there, and found further that he could
not get his ships over the bar. Hence more delays,
so that he was late again in getting to Newport,
where he was to unite with Sullivan in driving
the British from Rhode Island, as Washington
had planned, in case of failure at New York, while
the French were still hovering on the coast.
When D'Estaing finally reached Newport, there
was still another delay of ten days, and then, just
as he and Sullivan were preparing to attack, Lord

244 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Howe, with his squadron reinforced, appeared
off the harbor. Promising to return, D'Estaing
sailed out to give the enemy battle, and after
much manoeuvring both fleets were driven off by
a severe storm, and D'Estaing came back only to
tell Sullivan that he must go to Boston at once
to refit. Then came the protest addressed to the
Count and signed by all the American officers;
then the departure of D'Estaing, and an indis-
creet proclamation to the troops by Sullivan, re-
flecting on the conduct of the allies.

When D'Estaing had actually gone, and the
Americans were obliged to retreat, there was
much grumbling in all directions, and it looked as
if the first result of the alliance was to be a very
pretty quarrel. It was a bad and awkward busi-
ness. Congress had the good sense to suppress
the protest of the officers, and Washington, dis-
appointed, but perhaps not wholly surprised, set
himself to work to put matters right. It was no
easy task to soothe the French, on the one hand,
who were naturally aggrieved at the utterances of
the American officers and at the popular feeling,
and on the other to calm his own people, who
were, not without reason, both disappointed and
provoked. To Sullivan, fuming with wrath, he
wrote: "Should the expedition fail through the
abandonment of the French fleet, the officers con-
cerned will be apt to complain loudly. But pru-
dence dictates that we should put the best face
upon the matter, and to the world attribute the

THE ALLIES 245

removal to Boston to necessity. The reasons are
too obvious to need explaining." And again, a
few days later: "First impressions, you know,
are generally longest remembered, and will serve
to fix in a great degree our national character
among the French. In our conduct towards them
we should remember that they are a people old in
war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to
take fire when others scarcely seem warmed. Per-
mit me to recommend, in the most particular
manner, the cultivation of harmony and good
agreement, and your endeavor to destroy that
ill-humor which may have got into officers." To
Lafayette he wrote: "Everybody, sir, who rea-
sons, will acknowledge the advantages which we
have derived from the French fleet, and the zeal of
the commander of it; but in a free and republi-
can government you cannot restrain the voice of
the multitude. Every man will speak as he
thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and
consequently will judge of effects without attend-
ing to the causes. The censures which have been
leveled at the French fleet would more than prob-
ably have fallen in a much higher degree upon a
fleet of our own, if we had had one in the same
situation. It is the nature of man to be dis-
pleased with everything that disappoints a favorite
hope or flattering project; and it is the folly of
too many of them to condemn without investigat-
ing circumstances." Finally he wrote to D'Es-
taing, deploring the difference which had arisen,

246 GEORGE WASHINGTON

mentioning his own efforts and wishes to restore
harmony, and said: "It is in the trying circum-
stances to which your Excellency has been exposed
that the virtues of a great mind are displayed in
their brightest lustre, and that a general's charac-
ter is better known than in the moment of victory.
It was yours by every title that can give it; and
the adverse elements that robbed you of your prize
can never deprive you of the glory due you.
Though your success has not been equal to your
expectations, yet you have the satisfaction of re-
flecting that you have rendered essential services
to the common cause." This is not the letter of a
dull man. Indeed, there is a nicety about it that
partakes of cleverness, a much commoner thing
than greatness, but something which all great
men by no means possess. Thus by tact and com-
prehension of human nature, by judicious sup-
pression and equally judicious letters, "Washing-
ton, through the prudent exercise of all his
commanding influence, quieted his own people and
soothed his allies. In this way a serious disaster
was averted, and an abortive expedition was all
that was left to be regretted, instead of an ugly
quarrel, which might readily have neutralized the
vast advantages flowing from the French alliance.
Having refitted, D'Estaing bore away for the
West Indies, and so closed the first chapter in the
history of the alliance with France. Nothing
more was heard of the allies until the spring was
well advanced, when M. Gerard, the minister,

THE ALLIES 247

wrote, intimating that D'Estaing was about to
return, and asking what we would do. Washing-
ton replied at length, professing his willingness to
cooperate in any way, and offering, if the French
would send ships, to abandon everything, run all
risks, and make an attack on New York. No-
thing further came of it, and Washington heard
that the fleet had gone to the Southern States,
which he learned without regret, as he was appre-
hensive as to the condition of affairs in that
region. Again, in the autumn, it was reported
that the fleet was once more upon the northern
coast. Washington at once sent officers to be on
the lookout at the most likely points, and he wrote
elaborately to D'Estaing, setting forth with won-
derful perspicuity the incidents of the past, the
condition of the present, and the probabilities of
the future. He was willing to do anything, or
plan anything, provided his allies would join with
him. The jealousy so habitual in humanity, which
is afraid that some one else may get the glory of
a common success, was unknown to Washington,
and if he could but drive the British from America,
and establish American independence, he was per-
fectly willing that the glory should take care of
itself. But all his wisdom in dealing with the
allies was, for the moment, vain. While he was
planning for a great stroke, and calling out the
militia of New England, D'Estaing was making
ready to relieve Georgia, and a few days after
Washington wrote his second letter, the French

248 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and Americans assaulted the British works at
Savannah, and were repulsed with heavy losses.
Then D'Estaing sailed away again, and the second
effort of France to aid England's revolted colonies
came to an end. Their presence had had a good
moral effect, and the dread of D'Estaing's return
had caused Clinton to withdraw from Newport
and concentrate in New York. This was all that
was actually accomplished, and there was nothing
for it but to await still another trial and a more
convenient season.

With all his courtesy and consideration, with
all his readiness to fall in with the wishes and
schemes of the French, it must not be supposed
that Washington ever went an inch too far in this
direction. He valued the French alliance, and
proposed to use it to great purpose, but he was
not in the least dazzled or blinded by it. Even
in the earliest glow of excitement and hope pro-
duced by D'Estaing's arrival, Washington took
occasion to draw once more the distinction be-
tween a valuable alliance and volunteer adven-
turers, and to remonstrate again with Congress
about their reckless profusion in dealing with for-
eign officers. To Gouverneur Morris he wroje on
July 24, 1778: "The lavish manner in which rank
has hitherto been bestowed on these gentlemen
will certainly be productive of one or the other of
these two evils: either to make it despicable in
the eyes of Europe, or become the means of pour-
ing them in upon us like a torrent and adding to

THE ALLIES 249

our present burden. But it is neither the ex-
pense nor the trouble of them that I most dread.
There is an evil more extensive in its nature, and
fatal in its consequences, to be apprehended, and
that is the driving of all our own officers out of
the service, and throwing not only our army, but
our military councils, entirely into the hands of
foreigners. . . . Baron Steuben, I now find, is
also wanting to quit his inspectorship for a com-
mand in the line. This will be productive of
much discontent to the brigadiers. In a word,
although I think the baron an excellent officer, I
do most devoutly wish that we had not a single
foreigner among us except the Marquis de Lafay-
ette, who acts upon very different principles from
those which govern the rest." A few days later
he said, on the same theme, to the president of
Congress : " I trust you think me so much a citizen
of the world as to believe I am not easily warped
or led away by attachments merely local and
American ; yet I confess I am not entirely without
them, nor does it appear to me that they are
unwarrantable, if confined within proper limits.
Fewer promotions in the foreign line would have
been productive of more harmony, and made our
warfare more agreeable to all parties." Again,
he said of Steuben: "I regret that there should be
a necessity that his services should be lost to the
army ; at the same time I think it my duty expli-
citly to observe to Congress that his desire of hav-
ing an actual and permanent command in the line

250 GEORGE WASHINGTON

cannot be complied with without wounding the
feelings of a number of officers, whose rank and
merits give them every claim to attention; and
that the doing of it would be productive of much
dissatisfaction and extensive ill consequences."

Washington's resistance to the colonial defer-
ence for foreigners has already been pointed out,
but this second burst of opposition, coming at this
especial time, deserves renewed attention. The
splendid fleet and well-equipped troops of our ally
were actually at our gates, and everybody was
in a paroxysm of perfectly natural gratitude. To
the colonial mind, steeped in colonial habits of
thought, the foreigner at this particular juncture
appeared more than ever to be a splendid and
superior being. But he did not in the least con-
fuse or sway the cool judgment that guided the
destinies of the Revolution. Let us consider well
the pregnant sentences just quoted, and the letters
from which they are taken. They deserve it, for
they throw a strong light on a side of Washing-
ton's mind and character too little appreciated.
One hears it said not infrequently, it has been
argued even in print with some solemnity, that
Washington was, no doubt, a great man and rightly
a national hero, but that he was not an American.
It will be necessary to recur to this charge again
and consider it at some length. It is sufficient at
this point to see how it tallies with his conduct in
a single matter, which was a very perfect test of
the national and American quality of the man.

THE ALLIES 251

We can get at the truth by contrasting him with
his own contemporaries, the only fair comparison,
for he was a man and an American of his own
time and not of the present day, which is a point
his critics overlook.

Where he differed from the men of his own time
was in the fact that he rose to a breadth and height
of Americanism and of national feeling which no
other man of that day touched at all. Nothing
is more intense than the conservatism of mental
habits, and although it requires now an effort to
realize it, it should not be forgotten that in every
habit of thought the inhabitants of the thirteen
colonies were wholly colonial. If this is properly
appreciated we can understand the mental breadth
and vigor which enabled Washington to shake off
at once all past habits and become an independent
leader of an independent people. He felt to the
very core of his being the need of national self-
respect and national dignity. To him, as the chief
of the armies and the head of the Revolution, all
men, no matter what tongue they spake or what
country they came from, were to be dealt with on
a footing of simple equality, and treated according
to their merits. There was to him no glamour in
the fact that this man was a Frenchman and that
an Englishman. His own personal pride extended
to his people, and he bowed to no national supe-
riority anywhere. Hamilton was national through-
out, but he was born outside the thirteen colonies,
and knew his fellow-citizens only as Americans.

252 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Franklin was national, by the force of bis own
commanding genius. John Adams grew to the
same conception, so far as our relations to other
nations were concerned. But beyond these three
we may look far and closely before we find another
among all the really great men of the time who
freed himself wholly from the superstition of the
colonist about the nations of Europe.

When Washington drew his sword beneath the
Cambridge elm he stood forth as the first Amer-
ican, the best type of man that the New World
could produce, with no provincial taint upon him,
and no shadow of the colonial past clouding his
path. It was this great quality that gave the strug-
gle which he led a character it would never have
attained without a leader so constituted. Had he
been merely a colonial Englishman, had he not
risen at once to the conception of an American
nation, the world would have looked at us with
very different eyes. It was the personal dignity
of the man, quite as much as his fighting capacity,
which impressed Europe. Kings and ministers,
looking on dispassionately, soon realized that here
was no ordinary agitator or revolutionist, but a
great man on a great stage with great conceptions.
England, indeed, talked about a militia colonel,
but this chatter disappeared in the smoke of Tren-
ton, and even England came to look upon him as
the all-powerful spirit of the Revolution. Dull
men and colonial squires do not grasp a great idea
and carry it into action on the world's stage in a

THE ALLIES 253

few months. To stand forward at the head of raw
armies and of a colonial people as a national leader,
calm, dignified, and far-seeing, requires not only
character, but intellect of the highest and strongest
kind. Now that we have come as a people, after
more than a century's struggle, to the national feel-
ing which Washington compassed in a moment, it
is well to consider that single achievement and
to meditate on its meaning, whether in estimating
him, or in gauging what he was to the American
people when they came into existence.

Let us take another instance of the same quality,
shown also in the winter of 1778. Congress had
from the beginning a longing to conquer Canada,
which was a wholly natural and entirely lauda-
ble desire, for conquest is always more interesting
than defense. Washington, on the other hand,
after the first complete failure, which was so nearly
a success in the then undefended and unsuspicious
country, gave up pretty thoroughly all ideas of
attacking Canada again, and opposed the various
plans of Congress in that direction. When he had
a lif e-and-death struggle to get together and subsist
enough men to protect their own firesides, he had
ample reason to know that invasions of Canada
were hopeless. Indeed, not much active opposi-
tion from the commander-in-chief was needed to
dispose of the Canadian schemes, for facts settled
them as fast as they arose. When the cabal got
up its Canadian expedition, it consisted of La-
fayette, and penetrated no farther than Albany.

254 GEORGE WASHINGTON

So Washington merely kept his eye watchfully on
Canada, and argued against expeditions thither,
until this winter of 1778, when something quite
new in that direction came up.

Lafayette's imagination had been fired by the
notion of conquering Canada. His idea was to
get succors from France for this especial purpose,
and with them and American aid to achieve the
conquest. Congress was impressed and pleased by
the scheme, and sent a report upon it to Frank-
lin, to communicate to the French court, but Wash-
ington, when he heard of the plan, took a very
different view. He sent at once a long dispatch
to Congress, urging every possible objection to
the proposed campaign, on the ground of its ut-
ter impracticability, and with this official letter,
which was necessarily confined to the military side
of the question, went another addressed to Pres-
ident Laurens personally, which contained the
deeper reasons of his opposition. He said that
there was an objection not touched upon in his
public letter, which was absolutely insurmountable.
This was the introduction of French troops into
Canada to take possession of the capital, in the
midst of a people of their own race and religion,
and but recently severed from them.

He pointed out the enormous advantages which
would accrue to France from the possession of
Canada, such as independent posts, control of the
Indians, and the Newfoundland trade. "France,
. . . possessed of New Orleans on our right,

THE ALLIES 255

Canada on our left, and seconded by the numer-
ous tribes of Indians in our rear, . . . would, it
is much to be apprehended, have it in her power
to give law to these States." He went on to show
that France might easily find an excuse for such
conduct, in seeking a surety for her advances of
money, and that she had but little to fear from
the contingency of our being driven to reunite
with England. He continued: "Men are very
apt to run into extremes. Hatred to England
may carry some into an excess of confidence in
France, especially when motives of gratitude are
thrown into the scale. Men of this description
would be unwilling to suppose France capable of
acting so ungenerous a part. I am heartily dis-
posed to entertain the most favorable sentiments
of our new ally, and to cherish them in others to
a reasonable degree. But it is a maxim, founded
on the universal experience of mankind, that no
nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound
by its own interest ; and no prudent statesman or
politician will venture to depart from it. In our
circumstances we ought to be particularly cautious ;
for we have not yet attained sufficient vigor and
maturity to recover from the shock of any false
steps into which we may unwarily fall."

We shall have occasion to recall these utterances
at a later day, but at this time they serve to show
yet again how broadly and clearly Washington
judged nations and policies. Uppermost in his
mind was the destiny of his own nation, just com-

256 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ing into being, and from that firm point he watched
and reasoned. His words had no effect on Con-
gress, but as it turned out, the plan failed through
adverse influences in the quarter where Washing-
ton least expected them. He believed that this
Canadian plan had been put into Lafayette's mind
by the cabinet of Louis XVI., and he could not
imagine that a policy of such obvious wisdom
could be overlooked by French statesmen. In this
he was completely mistaken, for France failed to
see what seemed so simple to the American gen-
eral, that the opportunity had come to revive her
old American policy and reestablish her colonies
under the most favorable conditions. The minis-
ters of Louis XVI., moreover, did not wish the
colonies to conquer Canada, and the plan of La-
fayette and the Congress received no aid in Paris
and came to nothing. But the fruitless incident
exhibits in the strongest light the attitude of
Washington as a purely American statesman, and
the comprehensiveness of his mind in dealing with
large affairs.

The French alliance and the coming of the
French fleet were of incalculable advantage to the
colonies, but they had one evil effect, as has already
been suggested. To a people weary with unequal
conflict, it was a debilitating influence, and America
needed at that moment more than ever energy and
vigor, both in the council and the field. Yet the
general outlook was distinctly better and more en-
couraging. Soon after Washington had defeated

THE ALLIES 257

Clinton at Monmouth, and had taken a position
whence he could watch and check him, he wrote to
his friend General Nelson in Virginia : —

"It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful
to contemplate, that, after two years' manoeuvring
and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that per-
haps ever attended any one contest since the crea-
tion, both armies are brought back to the very
point they set out from, and that the offending
party at the beginning is now reduced to the spade
and pickaxe for defense. The hand of Providence
has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be
worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more
than wicked that has not gratitude enough to ac-
knowledge his obligations. But it will be time
enough for me to turn preacher when my present
appointment ceases."

He had reason to congratulate himself on the
result of his two years' campaigning, but as the
summer wore away and winter came on he found
causes for fresh and deep alarm, despite the good
outlook in the field. The demoralizing effects of
civil war were beginning to show themselves in
various directions. The character of Congress, in
point of ability, had declined alarmingly, for the
ablest men of the first Congress, with few excep-
tions, had departed. Some had gone to the army,
some to the diplomatic service, and many had re-
mained at home, preferring the honors and offices
of the States to those of the Confederation. Their
successors, patriotic and well-meaning though they

258 GEORGE WASHINGTON

were, lacked the energy and force of those who
had started the Revolution, and, as a consequence,
Congress had become feeble and ineffective, easily
swayed by influential schemers, and unable to cope
with the difficulties which surrounded them.

Outside the government the popular tone had
deteriorated sadly. The lavish issues of irredeem-
able paper by the Confederation and the States
had brought their finances to the verge of abso-
lute ruin. The continental currency had fallen to
something like forty to one in gold, and the de-
cline was hastened by the forged notes put out by
the enemy. The fluctuations of this paper soon
bred a spirit of gambling, and hence came a class
of men, both inside and outside of politics, who
sought, more or less corruptly, to make fortunes
by army contracts, and by forestalling the mar-
kets. These developments filled Washington with
anxiety, for in the financial troubles he saw ruin to
the army. The unpaid troops bore the injustice
done them with wonderful patience, but it was
something that could not last, and Washington
knew the danger. In vain did he remonstrate.
It seemed to be impossible to get anything done,
and at last, in the following spring, the outbreak
began. Two New Jersey regiments refused to
march until the assembly made provision for their
pay. Washington took high ground with them,
but they stood respectfully firm, and finally had
their way. Not long after came another outbreak
in the Connecticut line, with similar results.

THE ALLIES 259

These object lessons had some result, and by for-
eign loans and the ability of Robert Morris the
country was enabled to stumble along; but it was
a frightful and wearing anxiety to the commander-
in-chief.

Washington saw at once that the root of the evil
lay in the feebleness of Congress, and although he
could not deal with the finances, he was able to
strive for an improvement in the governing body.
Not content with letters, he left the army and went
to Philadelphia, in the winter of 1779, and there
appealed to Congress in person, setting forth the
perils which beset them, and urging action. He
wrote also to his friends everywhere, pointing out
the deficiencies of Congress, and begging them to
send better and stronger men. To Benjamin Har-
rison he wrote : " It appears to me as clear as ever
the sun did in its meridian brightness, that Amer-
ica never stood in more eminent need of the wise,
patriotic, and spirited exertions of her sons than
at this period; . . . the States separately are too
much engaged in their local concerns, and have
too many of their ablest men withdrawn from the
general council, for the good of the common weal."
He took the same high tone in all his letters, and
there can be seen through it all the desperate en-
deavor to make the States and the people under-
stand the dangers which he realized, but which
they either could not or would not appreciate.

On the other hand, while his anxiety was sharp-
ened to the highest point by the character of Con-

260 GEORGE WASHINGTON

gress, his sternest wrath was kindled by the gam-
bling and money -making which had become ram-
pant. To Reed he wrote in December, 1778: "It
gives me sincere pleasure to find that there is likely
to be a coalition of the Whigs in your State, a few
only excepted, and that the assembly is so well dis-
posed to second your endeavors in bringing those
murderers of our cause, the monopolizers, forestall-
ed, and engrossers, to condign punishment. It is
much to be lamented that each State, long ere this,
has not hunted them down as pests to society and
the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of
America. I would to God that some one of the
most atrocious in each State was hung in gibbets
upon a gallows five times as high as the one pre-
pared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion,
is too great for the man who can build his great-
ness upon his country's ruin." He would have
hanged them too had he had the power, for he was
always as good as his word.

It is refreshing to read these righteously angry
words, still ringing as sharply as when they were
written. They clear away all the myths — the
priggish, the cold, the statuesque, the dull myths
— as the strong gusts of the northwest wind in
autumn sweep off the heavy mists of lingering Au-
gust. They are the hot words of a warm-blooded
man, a good hater, who loathed meanness and
treachery, and who would have hanged those who
battened upon the country's distress. When he
went to Philadelphia, a few weeks later, and saw

THE ALLIES 261

the state of things with nearer view, he felt the
wretchedness and outrage of such doings more
than ever. He wrote to Harrison : "If I were to
be called upon to draw a picture of the times and
of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part
know, I should in one word say, that idleness, dis-
sipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast
hold of most of them ; that speculation, peculation,
and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have
got the better of every other consideration, and
almost of every order of men ; that party disputes
and personal quarrels are the great business of the
day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire,
a great and accumulating debt, ruined finances,
depreciated money, and want of credit, which, in
its consequences, is the want of everything, are
but secondary considerations, and postponed from
day to day, from week to week, as if our affairs
wore the most promising aspect."

Other men talked about empire, but he alone
grasped the great conception, and felt it in his
soul. To see not only immediate success imperiled,
but the future paltered with by small, mean, and
dishonest men, cut him to the quick. He set him-
self doggedly to fight it, as he always fought every
enemy, using both speech and pen in all quar-
ters. Much, no doubt, he ultimately effected, but
he was contending with the usual results of civil
war, which are demoralizing always, and especially
so among a young people in a new country. At
first, therefore, all seemed vain. The selfishness,

262 GEORGE WASHINGTON

"peculation, and speculation " seemed to get worse,
and the tone of Congress and the people lower, as
he struggled against them. In March, 1779, he
wrote to James Warren of Massachusetts: "No-
thing, I am convinced, but the depreciation of our
currency, aided by stock- jobbing and party dissen-
sions, has fed the hopes of the enemy, and kept the
British arms in America to this day. They do not
scruple to declare this themselves, and add that
we shall be our own conquerors. Can not our com-
mon country, America, possess virtue enough to
disappoint them? Is the paltry consideration of a
little pelf to individuals to be placed in competi-
tion with the essential rights and liberties of the
present generation, and of millions yet unborn?
Shall a few designing men, for their own aggran-
dizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset
the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the ex-
pense of so much time, blood, and treasure? And
shall we at last become the victims of our own lust
of gain? Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, all and
every State in the Union, by enacting and enfor-
cing efficacious laws for checking the growth of
these monstrous evils, and restoring matters, in
some degree, to the state they were in at the com-
mencement of the war."

"Our cause is noble. It is the cause of man-
kind, and the danger to it is to be apprehended
from ourselves. Shall we slumber and sleep, then,
while we should be punishing those miscreants
who have brought these troubles upon us, and who

THE ALLIES 263

are aiming to continue us in them ; while we
should be striving to fill our battalions, and devis-
ing ways and means to raise the value of the cur-
rency, on the credit of which everything depends? "
Again we see the prevailing idea of the future,
which haunted him continually. Evidently, he
had some imagination, and also a power of terse
and eloquent expression which we have heard of
before, and shall note again.

Still the appeals seemed to sound in deaf ears.
He wrote to George Mason: "I have seen, without
despondency, even for a moment, the hours which
America has styled her gloomy ones ; but I have
beheld no day since the commencement of hostili-
ties that I have thought her liberties in such im-
minent danger as at present. . . . Indeed, we are
verging so fast to destruction that I am filled with
sensations to which I have been a stranger till
within these three months.'' To Gouverneur
Morris he said : " If the enemy have it in their
power to press us hard this campaign, I know not
what may be the consequence." He had faced
the enemy, the bleak winters, raw soldiers, and all
the difficulties of impecunious government, with a
cheerful courage that never failed. But the spec-
tacle of widespread popular demoralization, of self-
ish scrambles for plunder, and of feeble adminis-
tration at the centre of government weighed upon
him heavily. It was not the general's business to
build up Congress and grapple with finance, but
Washington addressed himself to the new task

264 GEORGE WASHINGTON

with his usual persistent courage. It was slow and
painful work. He seemed to make no progress,
and then it was that his spirits sank at the pros-
pect of ruin and defeat, not coming on the field of
battle, but from our own vices and our own lack
of energy and wisdom. Yet his work told in the
end, as it always did. His vast and steadily grow-
ing influence made itself felt even through the
dense troubles of the uneasy times. Congress
turned with energy to Europe for fresh loans.
Lafayette worked away to get an army sent over.
The two Morrises, stimulated by Washington,
flung themselves into the financial difficulties, and
feeble but distinct efforts toward a more concen-
trated and better organized administration of pub-
lic affairs were made both in the States and the
confederation.

But, although Washington's spirits fell, and his
anxieties became wellnigh intolerable in this period
of reaction which followed the French alliance, he
made no public show of it, but carried on his own
work with the army and in the field as usual,
contending with all the difficulties, new and old,
as calmly and efficiently as ever. After Clinton
slipped away from Monmouth and sought refuge
in New York, Washington took post at convenient
points and watched the movements of the enemy.
In this way the summer passed. As always, Wash-
ington's first object was to guard the Hudson, and
while he held this vital point firmly, he waited,
ready to strike elsewhere if necessary. It looked

THE ALLIES 265

for a time as if the British intended to descend on
Boston, seize the town, and destroy the French
fleet, which had gone there to refit. Such was the
opinion of Gates, then commanding in that depart-
ment, and as Washington inclined to the same
belief, the fear of this event gave him many anx-
ious moments. He even moved his troops so as to
be in readiness to march eastward at short notice;
but he gradually became convinced that the enemy
had no such plan. Much of his thought, now and
always, was given to efforts to divine the intentions
of the British generals. They had so few settled
ideas, and were so tardy and lingering when they
had plans, that it is small wonder that their oppo-
nents were sorely puzzled in trying to find out what
their purposes were, when they really had none.
The fact was that Washington saw their military
opportunities with the eye of a great soldier, and
so much better than they, that he suffered a good
deal of needless anxiety in devising methods to
meet attacks which they had not the wit to under-
take. He had a profound contempt for their policy
of holding towns, and believing that they must see
the utter futility of it, after several years of trial,
he constantly expected from them a well-planned
and extensive campaign, which in reality they were
incapable of devising.

The main army, therefore, remained quiet, and
when the autumn had passed went into winter-
quarters in well-posted detachments about New
York. In December Clinton made an ineffectual

266 fcEORGE WASHINGTON

raid, and then all was peaceful again, and Wash-
ington was able to go to Philadelphia and struggle
with Congress, leaving his army more comfortable
and secure than they had been in any previous
winter.

In January he informed Congress as to the next
campaign. He showed them the impossibility o'f
undertaking anything on a large scale, and an-
nounced his intention of remaining on the defen-
sive. It was a trying policy to a man of his tem-
per, but he could do no better, and he knew, now
as always, what others could not yet see, that by
simply holding on and keeping his army in the
field he was slowly but surely winning independ-
ence. He tried to get Congress to do something
with the navy, and he planned an expedition, un-
der the command of Sullivan, to overrun the Indian
country and check the barbarous raids of the Tories
and savages on the frontier ; and with this he was
fain to be content. In fact, he perceived very
clearly the direction in which the war was tending.
He kept up his struggle with Congress for a per-
manent army, and with the old persistency pleaded
that something should be done for the officers, and
at the same time he tried to keep the States in
good humor when they were grumbling about the
amount of protection afforded them.

But all this wear and tear of heart and brain
and temper, while given chiefly to hold the army
together, was not endured with any notion that he
and Clinton were eventually to fight it out in the

THE ALLIES 267

neighborhood of New York. Washington felt that
that part of the conflict was over. He now hoped
and believed that the moment would come, when,
by uniting his army with the French, he should be
able to strike the decisive blow. Until that time
came, however, he knew that he could do nothing
on a great scale, and he felt that meanwhile the
British, abandoning practically the eastern and
middle States, would make one last desperate strug-
gle for victory, and would make it in the south.
Long before any one else, he appreciated this fact,
and saw a peril looming large in that region, where
everybody was considering the British invasion as
little more than an exaggerated raid. He foresaw,
too, that we should suffer more there than we had
in the extreme north, because the south was full of
Tories and less well organized.

All this, however, did not change his own plans
one jot. He believed that the south must work out
its own salvation, as New York and New England
had done with Burgoyne, and he felt sure that in
the end it would be successful. But he would not
go south, nor take his army there. The instinct
of a great commander for the vital point in a war
or a battle, is as keen as that of the tiger is said to
be for the jugular vein of its victim. The British
might overrun the north or invade the south, but
he would stay where he was, with his grip upon
New York and the Hudson River. The tide of
invasion might ebb and flow in this region or that,
but the British were doomed if they could not

268 GEORGE WASHINGTON

divide the eastern colonies from the others. When
the appointed hour came, he was ready to abandon
everything and strike the final and fatal blow ; but
until then he waited and stood fast with his army,
holding the great river in his grasp. He felt much
more anxiety about the south than he had felt
about the north, and expected Congress to consult
him as to a commander, having made up his mind
that Greene was the man to send. But Congress
still believed in Gates, who had been making trou-
ble for Washington all winter ; and so Gates was
sent, and Congress in due time got their lesson,
and found once more that Washington understood
men better than they did.

In the north the winter was comparatively un-
eventful. The spring passed, and in June Clinton
came out and took possession of Stony Point and
Verplanck's Point, and began to fortify them. It
looked a little as if Clinton might intend to get
control of the Hudson by slow approaches, fortify-
ing, and then advancing until he reached West
Point. With this in mind, Washington at once
determined to check the British by striking sharply
at one of their new posts. Having made up his
mind, he sent for Wayne and asked him if he would
storm Stony Point. Tradition says that Wayne
replied, "I will storm hell, if you will plan it." A
true tradition, probably, in keeping with Wayne's
character, and pleasant to us to-day as showing
with a vivid gleam of rough human speech the
utter confidence of the army in their leader, that

THE ALLIES 269

confidence which only a great soldier can inspire.
So Washington planned, and Wayne stormed, and
Stony Point fell. It was a gallant and brilliant
feat of arms, one of the most brilliant of the war.
Over five hundred prisoners were taken, the guns
were carried off, and the works destroyed, leaving
the British to begin afresh with a good deal of
increased caution and respect. Not long after,
Harry Lee stormed Paulus Hook with equal suc-
cess, and the British were checked and arrested, if
they intended any extensive movement. On the
frontier, Sullivan, after some delays, did his work
effectively, ravaging the Indian towns and redu-
cing them to quiet, thus taking away another an-
noyance and danger.

In these various ways Clinton's circle of activity
was steadily narrowed, but it may be doubted
whether he had any coherent plan. The principal
occupation of the British was to send out maraud-
ing expeditions and cut off outlying parties.
Tryon burned and pillaged in Connecticut, Mat-
thews in Virginia, and others on a smaller scale
elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. The
blundering stupidity of this system of warfare was
only equaled by its utter brutality. Houses were
burned, peaceful villages went up in smoke, women
and children were outraged, and soldiers were bay-
oneted after they had surrendered. These details
of the Revolution are wellnigh forgotten now, but
when the ear is wearied with talk about English
generosity and love of fair play, it is well to turn

270 GEORGE WASHINGTON

back and study the exploits of Tryon, and it is not
amiss in the same connection to recall that Eng-
lish budgets contained a special appropriation for
scalping-knives, a delicate attention to the Tories
and Indians who were burning and butchering on
the frontier.

Such methods of warfare Washington despised
intellectually, and hated morally. He saw that
every raid only hardened the people against Eng-
land, and made her cause more hopeless. The
misery caused by these raids angered him, but he
would not retaliate in kind, and Wayne bayoneted
no English soldiers after they laid down their arms
at Stony Point. It was enough for Washington
to hold fast to the great objects he had in view, to
check Clinton and circumscribe his movements.
Steadfastly he did this through the summer and
winter of 1779, which proved one of the worst
that he had yet endured. Supplies did not come,
the army dwindled, and the miseries of Valley
Forge were renewed. Again was repeated the old
and pitiful story of appeals to Congress and the
States, and again the undaunted spirit and strenu-
ous exertions of Washington saved the army and
the Revolution from the internal ruin which was
his worst enemy. When the new year began, he
saw that he was again condemned to a defensive
campaign, but this made little difference now, for
what he had foreseen in the spring of 1779 became
certainty in the autumn. The active war was
transferred to the south, where the chapter of dis-

THE ALLIES 271

asters was beginning, and Clinton had practically
given up everything except New York. The war
had taken on the new phase expected by Washing-
ton. Weak as he was, he began to detach troops,
and prepared to deal with the last desperate effort
of England to conquer her revolted colonies from
the south.

CHAPTER IX

Arnold's treason, and the war in the
south

The spring of 1780 was the beginning of a
period of inactivity and disappointment, of dili-
gent effort and frustrated plans. During the
months which ensued before the march to the
south, Washington passed through a stress of
harassing anxiety, which was far worse than any-
thing he had to undergo at any other time. Plans
were formed, only to fail. Opportunities arose,
only to pass by unfulfilled. The network of hos-
tile conditions bound him hand and foot, and it
seemed at times as if he could never break the
bonds that held him, or prevent or hold back the
moral, social, and political dissolution going on
about him. With the aid of France, he meant
to strike one decisive blow, and end the struggle.
Every moment was of importance, and yet the
days and weeks and months slipped by, and he
could get nothing done. He could neither gain
control of the sea, nor gather sufficient forces of
his own, although delay now meant ruin. He
saw the British overrun the south, and he could
not leave the Hudson. He was obliged to sacri-

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 273

fice the southern States, and yet he could get
neither ships nor men to attack New York. The
army was starving and mutinous, and he sought
relief in vain. The finances were ruined, Con-
gress was helpless, the States seemed stupefied.
Treason of the most desperate kind suddenly
reared its head, and threatened the very citadel of
the Revolution. These were the days of the war
least familiar to posterity. They are unmarked in
the main by action or fighting, and on this dreary
monotony nothing stands out except the black stain
of Arnold's treason. Yet it was the time of all
others when Washington had most to bear. It
was the time of all others when his dogged persist-
ence and unwavering courage alone seemed to sus-
tain the flickering fortunes of the war.

In April Washington was pondering ruefully
on the condition of affairs at the south. He saw
that the only hope of saving Charleston was in
the defense of the bar; and when that became in-
defensible, he saw that the town ought to be aban-
doned to the enemy, and the army withdrawn to
the country. His military genius showed itself
again and again in his perfectly accurate judg-
ment on distant campaigns. He seemed to appre-
hend all the conditions at a glance, and although
his wisdom made him refuse to issue orders when
he was not on the ground, those generals who fol-
lowed his suggestions, even when a thousand miles
away, were successful, and those who disregarded
them were not. Lincoln, commanding at Charles-

274 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ton, was a brave and loyal man, but he had neither
the foresight nor the courage to withdraw to the
country, and then, hovering on the lines of the
enemy, to confine them to the town. He yielded
to the entreaties of the citizens and remained, only
to surrender. Washington had retreated from
New York, and after five years of fighting the
British still held it, and had gone no further. He
had refused to risk an assault to redeem Philadel-
phia, at the expense of much grumbling and curs-
ing, and had then beaten the enemy when they
hastily retreated thence in the following spring.
His cardinal doctrine was that the Revolution de-
pended upon the existence of the army, and not on
the possession of any particular spot of ground,
and his masterly adherence to this theory brought
victory, slowly but surely. Lincoln's very natural
inability to grasp it, and to withstand popular pres-
sure, cost us for a time the southern States and a
great deal of bloody fighting.

In the midst of this anxiety about the south, and
when he foresaw the coming disasters, Washington
was cheered and encouraged by the arrival of
Lafayette, whom he loved, and who brought good
tidings of his zealous work for the United States
in Paris. An army and a fleet were on their way
to America, with a promise of more to follow.
This was great news indeed. It is interesting to
note how Washington took it, for we see here with
unusual clearness the readiness of grasp and quick-
ness of thought which have been noted before, but

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 275

which are not commonly attributed to him. It has
been the fashion to treat Washington as wise and
prudent, but as distinctly slow, and when he was
obliged to concentrate public opinion, either mili-
tary or civil, or when doubt overhung his course,
he moved with great deliberation. When he re-
quired no concentration of opinion, and had made
up his mind, he could strike with a terribly swift
decision, as at Trenton or Monmouth. So when
a new situation presented itself he seized with won-
derful rapidity every phase and possibility opened
by changed conditions.

The moment he learned from Lafayette that the
French succors were actually on the way, he began
to lay out plans in a manner which showed how he
had taken in at the first glance every chance and
every contingency. He wrote that the decisive
moment was at hand, and that the French succors
would be fatal if not used successfully now. Con-
gress must improve their methods of administra-
tion, and for this purpose must appoint a small
committee to cooperate with him. This step he
demanded, and it was taken at once. Fresh from
his interview with Lafayette, he sent out orders
to have inquiries made as to Halifax and its de-
fenses. Possibly a sudden and telling blow might
be struck there, and nothing should be overlooked.
He also wrote to Lafayette to urge upon the French
commander an immediate assault on New York the
moment he landed. Yet despite his thought for
New York, he even then began to see the oppor-

276 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tunities which were destined to develop into York-
town. He had longed to go to the south before,
and had held back only because he felt that the
main army and New York were still the key of
the position, and could not be safely abandoned.
Now, while planning the capture of New York, he
asked in a letter whether the enemy was not more
exposed at the southward and therefore a better
subject for a combined attack there. Clearness and
precision of plan as to the central point, joined to
a perfect readiness to change suddenly and strike
hard and decisively in a totally different quarter,
are sure marks of the great commander. We can
find them all through the correspondence, but
here in May, 1780, they come out with peculiar
vividness. They are qualities arising from a wide
foresight, and from a sure and quick perception.
They are not the qualities of a slow or heavy mind.
On June 1 came the news of the surrender of
Charleston and the loss of the army, which was
followed by the return of Clinton to New York.
The southern States lay open now to the enemy, and
it was a severe trial to Washington to be unable
to go to their rescue ; but with the same dogged
adherence to his ruling idea, he concentrated his
attention on the Hudson with renewed vigilance
on account of Clinton's return. Adversity and
prosperity alike were unable to divert him from
the control of the great river and the mastery of
the middle States until he saw conclusive victory
elsewhere fairly within his grasp. In the same

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 277

unswerving way he pushed on the preparations for
what he felt to be the coming of the decisive cam-
paign and the supreme moment of the war. To
all the governors went urgent letters, calling on
the States to fill their lines in the continental
army, and to have their militia in readiness.

In the midst of these anxieties and preparations,
the French arrived at Newport, bringing a well-
equipped army of some five thousand men, and a
small fleet. They brought, too, something quite
as important, in the way of genuine good-will and
full intention to do all in their power for their
allies. After a moment's hesitation, born of un-
lucky memories, the people of Rhode Island gave
De Rochambeau a hearty welcome, and Washing-
ton sent him the most cordial greeting. With the
greeting went the polite but earnest request for
immediate action, together with plans for attack-
ing New York; and, at the same time, another
urgent call went out to the States for men, money,
and supplies. The long-looked-for hour had ar-
rived, a fine French army was in Newport, a French
fleet rode in the harbor, and instead of action, im-
mediate and effective, the great event marked only
the beginning of a period of delays and disappoint-
ment, wearing heart and nerve almost beyond
endurance.

First it appeared that the French ships could
not get into New York harbor. Then there was
.sickness in the French army. Then the British
menaced Newport, and rapid preparations had to

278 GEORGE WASHINGTON

be made to meet that danger. Then it came out
that De Kochambeau was ordered to await the
arrival of the second division of the army, with
more ships; and after due waiting, it was discov-
ered that the aforesaid second division, with their
ships, were securely blockaded by the English
fleet at Brest. On our side it was no better;
indeed, it was rather worse. There was lack of
arms and powder. The drafts were made with
difficulty, and the new levies came in slowly. Sup-
plies failed altogether, and on every hand there
was nothing but delay, and ever fresh delay, and
in the midst of it all Washington, wrestling with
sloth and incoherence and inefficiency, trampled
down one failure and disappointment only to en-
counter another, equally important, equally petty,
and equally harassing.

On August 20 he wrote to Congress a long and
most able letter, which set forth forcibly the evil
and perilous condition of affairs. After reading
that letter no man could say that there was not
need of the utmost exertion, and for the expendi-
ture of the last ounce of energy. In it Washing-
ton struck especially at the two delusions with
which the people and their representatives were
lulling themselves into security, and by which they
were led to relax their efforts. One was the belief
that England was breaking down; the other, that
the arrival of the French was synonymous with the
victorious close of the war. Washington demon-
strated that England still commanded the sea, and

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 279

that as long as she did so there was a great advan-
tage on her side. She was stronger, on the whole,
this year than the year before, and her financial
resources were still ample. There was no use in
looking for victory in the weakness of the enemy,
and on the other hand, to rely wholly on France
was contemptible as well as foolish. After stating
plainly that the army was on the verge of dissolu-
tion, he said : " To me it will appear miraculous if
our affairs can maintain themselves much longer in
their present train. If either the temper or the
resources of the country will not admit of an
alteration, we may expect soon to be reduced to
the humiliating condition of seeing the cause of
America, in America, upheld by foreign arms.
The generosity of our allies has a claim to all our
confidence and all our gratitude, but it is neither
for the honor of America, nor for the interest of
the common cause, to leave the work entirely to
them."

It must have been bitter to Washington above
all men, with his high dignity and keen sense
of national honor, to write such words as these, or
make such an argument to any of his countrymen.
But it was a work which the time demanded, and
he did it without flinching. Having thus laid
bare the weak places, he proceeded to rehearse
once more, with a weariness we can easily fancy,
the old, old lesson as to organization, a permanent
army, and a better system of administration. This
letter neither scolded, nor bewailed, nor desponded,

280 GEORGE WASHINGTON

but it told the truth with great force and vigor.
Of course it had but slight results, comparatively
speaking; still it did something, and the final suc-
cess of the Revolution is due to the series of strong
truth-telling letters, of which this is an example,
as much as to any one thing done by Washington.
There was need of some one, not only to fight
battles and lead armies, but to drive Congress into
some sort of harmony, spur the careless and indif-
ferent to action, arouse the States, and kill various
fatal delusions, and in Washington the robust teller
of unwelcome truths was found.

Still, even the results actually obtained by such
letters came but slowly, and Washington felt that
he must strike at all hazards. Through Lafayette
he tried to get De Rochambeau to agree to an
immediate attack on New York. His army was
on the very eve of dissolution, and he began with
reason, to doubt his own power of holding it to-
gether longer. The finances of the country were go-
ing ever faster to irremediable ruin, and it seemed
impossible that anything could postpone open and
avowed bankruptcy. So, with his army crumbling,
mutinous, and half starved, he turned to his one
unfailing resource of fighting, and tried to per-
suade De Rochambeau to join him. Under the
circumstances, Washington was right to wish to
risk a battle, and De Rochambeau, from his point
of view, was equally so in refusing to take the
offensive, unless the second division arrived or De
Guichen came with his fleet, or the English force
at New York was reduced.

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 281

In these debates and delays, mingled with an
appeal to De Guichen in the West Indies, the
summer was fast wearing away, and, by way of
addition, early in September came tidings of the
battle of Camden, and the utter rout of Gates's
army. Despite his own needs and trials, Wash-
ington's first idea was to stem the current of
disaster at the south, and he ordered the fresh
Maryland troops to turn back at once and march
to the Carolinas, but Gates fled so fast and far
that it was some time before anything was heard
of him. As more news came of Camden and its
beaten general, Washington wrote to Rutledge that
he should ultimately come southward. Meantime,
he could only struggle with his own difficulties,
and rack his brains for men and means to rescue
the south. It must have seemed to Washington,
in those lovely September days, as if fate could
not have any worse trials in store, and that if he
could only breast the troubles now surging about
him, he might count on sure and speedy success.
Yet the bitterest trial of all was even then hang-
ing over his head, and with a sort of savage
sarcasm it came upon him in one of those rare mo-
ments when he had an hour of rest and sunshine.

The story of Arnold's treason is easily told.
Its romantic side has made it familiar to all Amer-
icans, and given it a factitious importance. Had
it succeeded it would have opened opportunities of
disaster to the American arms, although it would
not have affected the final outcome of the Kevolu-

282 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tion. As it was it failed, and had no result what-
ever. It has passed into history simply as a pic-
turesque episode, charged with possibilities which
attract the imagination, but having, in itself, nei-
ther meaning nor consequences beyond the two
conspirators. To us it is of interest, because it
shows Washington in one of the sharpest and bit-
terest experiences of his life. Let us see how he
met it and dealt with it.

From the day when the French landed, both
De Kochambeau and Washington had been most
anxious to meet. The French general had been
particularly urgent, but it was difficult for Wash-
ington to get away. As he wrote on August 21 :
" We are about ten miles from the enemy. Our
popular government imposes a necessity of great
circumspection. If any misfortune should happen
in my absence, it would be attended with every
inconvenience. I will, however, endeavor if pos-
sible, and as soon as possible, to meet you at some
convenient rendezvous." In accordance with this
promise, a few weeks later, he left Greene in com-
mand of the army, and, not without misgivings,
started on September 18 to meet De Kochambeau.
On his way he had an interview with Arnold, who
came to him to show a letter from the loyalist
Colonel Robinson, and thus disarm suspicion as to
his doings. On the 20th, the day when Andre and
Arnold met to arrange the terras of the sale, Wash-
ington was with De Kochambeau at Hartford.
News had arrived, meantime, that De Guichen had

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 283

sailed for Europe; the command of the sea was
therefore lost, and the opportunity for action had
gone by. There was no need for further confer-
ence, and Washington accordingly set out on his
return at once, two or three days earlier than he
had intended.

He was accompanied by his own staff, and by
Knox and Lafayette with their officers. With
him, too, went the young Count Dumas, who has
left a description of their journey, and of the popu-
lar enthusiasm displayed in the towns through
which they passed. In one village, which they
reached after nightfall, all the people turned out,
the children bearing torches, and men and women
hailed Washington as father, and pressed about
him to touch the hem of his garments. Turning to
Dumas he said, " We may be beaten by the Eng-
lish ; it is the chance of war ; but there is the army
they will never conquer. " Political leaders grum-
bled, and military officers caballed, but the popu-
lar feeling went out to Washington with a sure
and utter confidence. The people in that little
village recognized the great and unselfish leader
as they recognized Lincoln a century later, and
from the masses of the people no one ever heard
the cry that Washington was cold or unsympa-
thetic. They loved him, and believed in him, and
such a manifestation of their devotion touched him
deeply. His spirits rose under the spell of appre-
ciation and affection, always so strong upon human
nature, and he rode away from Fishkill the next
morning: at davbreak with a light heart.

284 GEORGE WASHINGTON

The company was pleasant and lively, the morn-
ing was fair, and as they approached Arnold's
headquarters at the Robinson house, Washington
turned off to the redoubts by the river, telling the
young men that they were all in love with Mrs.
Arnold and would do well to go straight on and
breakfast with her. Hamilton and McHenry fol-
lowed his advice, and while they were at breakfast
a note was brought to Arnold. It was the letter
of warning from Andre announcing his capture,
which Colonel Jameson, who ought to have been
cashiered for doing it, had forwarded. Arnold at
once left the table, and saying that he was going
to West Point, jumped into his boat and was rowed
rapidly down the river to the British man-of-war.
Washington on his arrival was told that Arnold
had gone to the fort, and so after a hasty breakfast
he went over there himself. On reaching West
Point no salute broke the stillness, and no guard
turned out to receive him. He was astonished to
learn that his arrival was unexpected, and that
Arnold had not been there for two days. Still
unsuspecting he inspected the works, and then
returned.

Meantime, the messenger sent to Hartford with
the papers taken on Andre reached the Robinson
house and delivered them to Hamilton, together
with a letter of confession from Andre himself.
Hamilton read them, and hurrying out met Wash-
ington just coming up from the river. He took
his chief aside, said a few words to him in a low

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 285

voice, and they went into the house together.
When they came out, Washington looked as calm
as ever, and calling to Lafayette and Knox gave
them the papers, saying simply, "Whom can we
trust now? " He dispatched Hamilton at once to
try to intercept Arnold at Verplanck's Point, but
it was too late; the boat had passed, and Arnold
was safe on board the Vulture. This done, Wash-
ington bade his staff sit down with him at dinner,
as the general was absent, and Mrs. Arnold was
ill in her room. Dinner over, he immediately set
about guarding the post, which had been so near
betrayal. To Colonel Wade at West Point he
wrote : " Arnold has gone to the enemy ; you are
in command, be vigilant." To Jameson he sent
word to guard Andre closely. To the colonels
and commanders of various outlying regiments he
sent orders to bring up their troops. Everything
was done that should have been done, quickly,
quietly, and without comment. The most sudden
and appalling treachery had failed to shake his
nerve, or confuse his mind.

Yet the strong and silent man was wrung to the
quick, and when everything possible had been done,
and he had retired to his room, the guard outside
the door heard him marching back and forth
through all the weary night. The one thing he
least expected, because he least understood it, had
come to pass. He had been a good and true friend
to the villain who had fled, for Arnold's reckless
bravery and dare-devil fighting had appealed to

286 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the strongest passion of his nature, and he had
stood by him always. He had grieved over the
refusal of Congress to promote him in due order
and had interceded with ultimate success in his be-
half. He had sympathized with him in his recent
troubles in Philadelphia, and had administered the
reprimand awarded by the court-martial so that
rebuke seemed turned to praise. He had sought
to give him every opportunity that a soldier could
desire, and had finally conferred upon him the
command of West Point. He had admired his
courage and palliated his misconduct, and now the
scoundrel had turned on him and fled. Mingled
with the bitterness of these memories of betrayed
confidence was the torturing ignorance of how far
this base treachery had extended. For all he knew
there might be a brood of traitors about him in
the very citadel of America. We can never know
Washington's thoughts at that time, for he was
ever silent, but as we listen in imagination to the
sound of the even footfalls which the guard heard
all through that September night, we can dimly
guess the feelings of the strong and passionate
nature, wounded and distressed almost beyond
endurance.

There is but little more to tell. The conspiracy
stopped with Arnold. He had no accomplices,
and meant to deliver the post and pocket the booty
alone. The British tried to spread the idea that
other officers had been corrupted, but the attempt
failed, and Washington's prompt measures of

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 287

defense checked any movement against the forts.
Every effort was made by Clinton to save Andre,
but in vain. He was tried by a court composed of
the highest officers in the American service, among
whom was Lafayette. On his own statement, but
one decision was possible. He was condemned as
a spy, and as a spy he was sentenced to be hanged.
He made a manly appeal against the manner of
his death, and begged to be shot. 'Washington
declined to interfere, and Andre went to the
gallows.

The British, at the time, and some of their writ-
ers afterwards, attacked Washington for insisting
on this mode of execution, but there never was an
instance in his career when he was more entirely
right. Andre was a spy and briber, who sought to
ruin the American cause by means of the treachery
of an American general. It was a dark and dan-
gerous game, and he knew that he staked his life
on the result. He failed, and paid the penalty.
Washington could not permit, he would have been
grossly and feebly culpable if he had permitted,
such an attempt to pass without extreme punish-
ment. He was generous and magnanimous, but
he was not a sentimentalist, and he punished this
miserable treason, so far as he could reach it, as
it deserved. It is true that Andre was a man of
talent, well-bred and courageous, and of engaging
manners. He deserved all the sympathy and
sorrow which he excited at the time, but nothing
more. He was not only technically a spy, but he

288 GEORGE WASHINGTON

had sought his ends by bribery, he had prostituted
a flag of truce, and he was to be richly paid for
his work. It was all hire and salary. No doubt
Andre was patriotic and loyal. Many spies have
been the same, and have engaged in their danger-
ous exploits from the highest motives. Nathan
Hale, whom the British hanged without compunc-
tion, was as well-born and well-bred as Andre, and
as patriotic as man could be, and moreover he was
a spy and nothing more. Andre was a trafficker in
bribes and treachery, and however we may pity his
fate, his name has no proper place in the great
temple at Westminster, where all English-speaking
people bow with reverence, and only a most per-
verted sentimentality could conceive that it was
fitting to erect a monument to his memory in this
country.

Washington sent Andre to the gallows because
it was his duty to do so, but he pitied him none
the less, and whatever he may have thought of the
means Andre employed to effect his end, he made
no comment upon him, except to say that "he
met his fate with that fortitude which was to be
expected from an accomplished man and gallant
officer." As to Arnold, he was almost equally
silent. When obliged to refer to him he did so in
the plainest and simplest way, and only in a fa-
miliar letter to Laurens do we get a glimpse of his
feelings. He wrote: "I am mistaken if at this
time Arnold is undergoing the torment of a mental
hell. He wants feeling. From some traits of his

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 289

character which have lately come to my knowledge,
he seems to have been so hackneyed in villainy,
and so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that,
while his faculties will enable him to continue his
sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse."
With this single expression of measureless con-
tempt, Washington let Arnold drop from his life.
The first shock had touched him to the quick,
although it could not shake his steady mind. Re-
flection revealed to him the extraordinary baseness
of Arnold's real character, and he cast the thought
of him out forever, content to leave the traitor
to the tender mercies of history. The calmness
and dignity, the firmness and deep feeling which
Washington exhibited, are of far more interest
than the abortive treason, and have as real a value
now as they had then, when suspicion for a moment
ran riot, and men wondered "whom they could
trust."

The treason of Arnold swept like a black cloud
across the sky, broke, and left everything as be-
fore. That such a base peril should have existed
was alarming and hateful. That it should have
been exploded harmlessly made all men give a deep
sigh of relief. But neither the treason nor its dis-
covery altered the current of events one jot. The
summer had come and gone. The French had
arrived, and no blow had been struck. There was
nothing to show for the campaign but inaction,
disappointment, and the loss of the Carolinas.
With the commander-in-chief, through it all, were

290 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ever present two great questions, getting more
portentous and more difficult of solution with each
succeeding day. How he was to keep his army in
existence was one, and how he was to hold the
government together was the other. He had thir-
teen tired States, a general government almost
impotent, a bankrupt treasury, and a broken
credit. The American Revolution had come down
to the question of whether the brain, will, and
nerve of one man could keep the machine going
long enough to find fit opportunity for a final and
decisive stroke. Washington had confidence in
the people of the country and in himself, but the
difficulties in the way were huge, and the means of
surmounting them slight. There is here and there
a passionate undertone in the letters of this period,
which shows us the moments when the waves of
trouble and disaster seemed to sweep over him.
But the feeling passed, or was trampled under foot,
for there was no break in the steady fight against
untoward circumstances, or in the grim refusal to
accept defeat.

It is almost impossible now to conceive the
actual condition at that time of every matter of
detail which makes military and political existence
possible. No general phrases can do justice to the
situation of the army; and the petty miseries and
privations, which made life unendurable, went on
from day to day in ever varying forms. While
Washington was hearing the first ill news from
the south and struggling with the problem on that

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 291

side, and at the same time was planning with
Lafayette how to take advantage of the French
succors, the means of subsisting his army were
wholly giving out. The men actually had no food.
For days, as Washington wrote, there was no meat
at all in camp. Goaded by hunger, a Connecticut
regiment mutinied. They were brought back to
duty, but held out steadily for their pay, which
they had not received for five months. Indeed,
the whole army was more or less mutinous, and it
was only by the utmost tact that Washington kept
them from wholesale desertion. After the summer
had passed and the chance for a decisive campaign
had gone with it, the excitement of expected ac-
tion ceased to sustain the men, and the unclothed,
unpaid, unfed soldiers began again to get restive.
We can imagine what the condition of the rank
and file must have been when we find that Wash-
ington himself could not procure an express from
the quartermaster-general, and was obliged to
send a letter to the Minister of France by the un-
safe and slow medium of the post. He was ex-
pected to carry on a war against a rich and power-
ful enemy, and he could not even pay a courier to
carry his dispatches.

With the commander-in-chief thus straitened,
the sufferings of the men grew to be intolerable,
and the spirit of revolt which had been checked
through the summer began again to appear. At
last, in January, 1781, it burst all the bounds.
The Pennsylvania line mutinied and threatened

292 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Congress. Attempts on the part of the English
to seduce them failed, but they remained in a state
of open rebellion. The officers were powerless,
and it looked as if the disaffection would spread,
and the whole army go to pieces in the very face of
the enemy. Washington held firm, and intended
in his unshaken way to bring them back to their
duty without yielding in a dangerous fashion. But
the government of Pennsylvania, at last thoroughly
frightened, rushed into the field, and patched up
a compromise which contained most perilous con-
cessions. The natural consequence was a fresh
mutiny in the New Jersey line, and this time Wash-
ington determined that he would not be forestalled.
He sent forward at once some regiments of loyal
troops, suppressed the mutiny suddenly and with
a strong hand, and hanged two of the ringleaders.
The difficulty was conquered, and discipline re-
stored.

To take this course required great boldness, for
these mutinies were of no ordinary character. In
the first place, it was impossible to tell whether
any troops would do their duty against their fel-
lows, and failure would have been fatal. In the
second place, the grievances of the soldiers were
very great, and their complaints were entirely
righteous. Washington felt the profoundest sym-
pathy with his men, and it was no easy matter to
maintain order with soldiers tried almost beyond
endurance, against their comrades whose claims
were just. Two things saved the army. One was

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 293

Washington's great influence with the men and
their utter belief in him. The other was the qual-
ity of the men themselves. Lafayette said they
were the most patient and patriotic soldiers the
world had seen, and it is easy to believe him. The
wonder is, not that they mutinied when they did,
but that the whole army had not mutinied and
abandoned the struggle years before. The mis-
fortunes and mistakes of the Revolution, to whom-
ever due, were in no respect to be charged to the
army, and the conduct of the troops through all
the dreary months of starvation and cold and pov-
erty is a proof of the intelligent patriotism and
patient courage of the American soldier which can
never be gainsaid. To fight successful battles is
the test of a good general, but to hold together a
suffering army through years of unexampled pri-
vations, to meet endless failure of details with
unending expedients, and then to fight battles and
plan campaigns, shows a leader who was far more
than a good general. Such multiplied trials and
difficulties are overcome only by a great soldier
who with small means achieves large results, and
by a great man who by force of will and character
can establish with all who follow him a power
which no miseries can conquer, and no suffering
diminish.

The height reached by the troubles in the army
and their menacing character had, however, a good
as well as a bad side. They penetrated the indif-
ference and carelessness of both Congress and the

294 GEORGE WASHINGTON

States. Gentlemen in the confederate and local
administrations and legislatures woke up to a real-
izing sense that the dissolution of the army meant
a general wreck, in which their own necks would
be in very considerable danger ; and they also had
an uneasy feeling that starving and mutinous sol-
diers were very uncertain in taking revenge. The
condition of the army gave a sudden and piercing
reality to Washington's indignant words to Ma-
thews on October 4: "At a time when public
harmony is so essential, when we should aid and
assist each other with all our abilities, when our
hearts should be open to information and our hands
ready to administer relief, to find distrusts and
jealousies taking possession of the mind and a
party spirit prevailing affords a most melancholy
reflection, and forebodes no good." The hoarse
murmur of impending mutiny emphasized strongly
the words written on the same day to Duane : "The
history of the war is a history of false hopes and
temporary expedients. Would to God they were
to end here."

The events in the south, too, had a sobering
effect. The congressional general Gates had not
proved a success. His defeat at Camden had been
terribly complete, and his flight had been too rapid
to inspire confidence in his capacity for recupera-
tion. The members of Congress were thus led to
believe that as managers of military matters they
left much to be desired; and when Washington,
on October 11, addressed to them one of his long

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 295

and admirable letters on reorganization, it was
received in a very chastened spirit. They had lis-
tened to many such letters before, and had bene-
fited by them always a little, but danger and defeat
gave this one peculiar point. They therefore ac-
cepted the situation, and adopted all the sugges-
tions of the commander-in-chief. They also in
the same reasonable frame of mind determined that
Washington should select the next general for the
southern army. A good deal could have been
saved had this decision been reached before ; but
even now it was not too late. October 14, Wash-
ington appointed Greene to this post of difficulty
and danger, and Greene's assumption of the com-
mand marks the turning-point in the tide of dis-
aster, and the beginning of the ultimate expulsion
of the British from the only portion of the colonies
where they had made a tolerable campaign.

The uses of adversity, moreover, did not stop
here. They extended to the States, which began
to grow more vigorous in action, and to show signs
of appreciating the gravity of the situation and the
duties which rested upon them. This change and
improvement both in Congress and the States came
none too soon. Indeed, as it was, the results of
their renewed efforts were too slow to be felt at
once by the army, and mutinies broke out even
after the new spirit had shown itself. Washington
also sent Knox to travel from State to State, to
see the various governors, and lay the situation of
affairs before them ; yet even with such a text it

296 GEOEGE WASHINGTON

was a difficult struggle to get the States to make
quick and strong exertions sufficient to prevent a
partial mutiny from becoming a general revolt.
The lesson, however, had had its effect. For the
moment, at least, the cause was saved. The worst
defects were temporarily remedied, and something
was done toward supplies and subsistence. The
army would be able to exist through another
winter, and face another summer. Then the next
campaign might bring the decisive moment; but
still, who could tell? Years, instead of months,
might yet elapse before the end was reached, and
then no man could say what the result would be.

Washington saw plainly enough that the relief
and improvement were only temporary, and that
carelessness and indifference were likely to return,
and be more case-hardened than ever. He was too
strong and sane a man to waste time in fighting
shadows or in nourishing himself with hopes. He
dealt with the present as he found it, and fought
down difficulties as they sprang up in his path.
But he was also a man of extraordinary prescience,
with a foresight as penetrating as it was judicious.
It was, perhaps, his most remarkable gift, and
while he controlled the present he studied the fu-
ture. Outside of the operations of armies, and the
plans of campaign, he saw, as the war progressed,
that the really fatal perils were involved in the
political system. At the beginning of the Revolu-
tion there was no organization outside the local
state governments. Congress voted and resolved

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 297

in favor of anything that seemed proper, and the
States responded to their appeal. In the first flush
of revolution, and the first excitement of freedom,
this was all very well. But as the early passion
cooled, and a long and stubborn struggle, replete
with sufferings and defeat, developed itself, the
want of system began to appear.

One of the earliest tasks of Congress was the
formation of articles for a general government,
but state jealousies, and the delays incident to
the movements of thirteen sovereignties, prevented
their adoption until the war was nearly over.
Washington, suffering from all the complicated
troubles of jarring States and general incoherence,
longed for and urged the adoption of the act of
confederation. He saw sooner than any one else,
and with more painful intensity, the need of better
union and more energetic government. As the
days and months of difficulties and trials went by,
the suggestions on this question in his letters grew
more frequent and more urgent, and they showed
the insight of the statesman and practical man of
affairs. How much he hoped from the final ac-
ceptance of the act of confederation it is not easy
to say, but he hoped for some improvement cer-
tainly. When at last it went into force, he saw
almost at once that it would not do, and in the
spring of 1780 he knew it to be a miserable failure.
The system which had been established was really
no better than that which had preceded it. With
alarm and disgust Washington found himself flung

298 GEORGE WASHINGTON

back on what he called "the pernicious state sys-
tem," and with worse prospects than ever.

Up to the time of the Revolution he had never
given attention to the philosophy or science of
government, but when it fell to his lot to fight the
war for independence he perceived almost immedi-
ately the need of a strong central government, and
his suggestions, scattered broadcast among his cor-
respondents, manifested a knowledge of the condi-
tions of the political problem possessed by no one
else at that period. When he was satisfied of the
failure of the confederation, his efforts to improve
the existing administration multiplied, and he soon
had the assistance of his aide-de-camp, Alexander
Hamilton, who then wrote, although little more
than a boy, his remarkable letters on government
and finance, which were the first full expositions
of the political necessities from which sprang the
Constitution of the United States. Washington
was vigorous in action and methodical in business,
while the system of thirteen sovereignties was dis-
cordant, disorderly, and feeble in execution. He
knew that the vices inherent in the confederation
were ineradicable and fatal, and he also knew that
it was useless to expect any comprehensive reforms
until the war was over. The problem before him
was whether the existing machine could be made
to work until the British were finally driven from
the country. The winter of 1780-81 was marked,
therefore, on his part, by an urgent striving for
union, and by unceasing efforts to mend and im-

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH 299

prove the rickety system of the confederation. It
was with this view that he secured the dispatch of
Laurens, whom he carefully instructed, to get
money in Paris; for he was satisfied that it was
only possible to tide over the financial difficulties
by foreign loans from those interested in our suc-
cess. In the same spirit he worked to bring about
the establishment of executive departments, which
was finally accomplished, after delays that sorely
tried his patience. These two cases were but the
most important among many of similar character,
for he was always at work on these perplexing
questions.

It is an astonishing proof of the strength and
power of his mind that he was able to solve the
daily questions of army existence, to deal with the
allies, to plan attacks on New York, to watch and
scheme for the southern department, to cope with
Arnold's treason, with mutiny, and with adminis-
trative imbecility, and at the very same time con-
sider the gravest governmental problems, and send
forth wise suggestions, which met the exigencies
of the moment, and laid the foundation of much
that afterwards appeared in the Constitution of the
United States. He was not a speculator on gov-
ernment, and after his fashion he was engaged in
dealing with the questions of the day and hour.
Yet the ideas that he put forth in this time of-
confusion and conflict and expedients were so
vitally sound and wise that they deserve the most
careful study in relation to after events. The

300 GEORGE WASHINGTON

*

political trials and difficulties of this period were
the stern teachers from whom Washington acquired
the knowledge and experience which made him the
principal agent in bringing about the formation
and adoption of the Constitution of the United
States. We shall have occasion to examine these
opinions and views more closely when they were
afterwards brought into actual play. At this point
it is only necessary to trace the history of the
methods by which he solved the problem of the
Revolution before the political system of the con-
federation became absolutely useless.

CHAPTER X

YORKTOWN

The failure to accomplish anything in the north
caused Washington, as the year drew to a close,
to turn his thoughts once more toward a combined
movement at the south. In pursuance of this idea,
he devised a scheme of uniting with the Spaniards
in the seizure of Florida, and of advancing thence
through Georgia to assail the English in the rear.
De Rochambeau did not approve the plan, and it
was abandoned ; but the idea of a southern move-
ment was still kept steadily in sight. The gov-
erning thought now was, not to protect this place
or that, but to cast aside everything else in order
to strike one great blow which would finish the
war. Where he could do this, time alone would
show, but if one follows the correspondence closely,
it is apparent that Washington's military instinct
turned more and more toward the south.

In that department affairs changed their aspect
rapidly. January 17, Morgan won his brilliant
victory at the Cowpens, withdrew in good order
with his prisoners, and united his army with that
of Greene. Cornwallis was terribly disappointed
by this unexpected reverse, but he determined to

302 GEORGE WASHINGTON

push on, defeat the combined American army, and
then join the British forces on the Chesapeake.
Greene was too weak to risk a battle, and made a
masterly retreat of two hundred miles before Corn-
wallis, escaping across the Dan only twelve hours
ahead of the enemy. The moment the British
moved away, Greene recrossed the river and hung
upon their rear. For a month he kept in their
neighborhood, checking the rising of the Tories,
and declining battle. At last he received rein-
forcements, felt strong enough to stand his ground,
and on March 15 the battle of Guilford Court
House was fought. It was a sharp and bloody
fight; the British had the advantage, and Greene
abandoned the field, bringing off his army in good
order. Cornwallis, on his part, had suffered so
heavily, 'however, that his victory turned to ashes.
On the 18th he was in full retreat, with Greene in
hot chase, and it was not until the 28th that he
succeeded in getting over the Deep River and
escaping to Wilmington. Thence he determined
to push on and transfer the seat of war to the
Chesapeake. Greene, with the boldness and quick-
ness which showed him to be a soldier of a high
order, now dropped the pursuit and turned back to
fight the British in detachments and free the south-
ern States. There is no need to follow him in the
brilliant operations which ensued, and by which he
achieved this result. It is sufficient to say here
that he had altered the whole aspect of the war,
forced Cornwallis into Virginia within reach of

YORKTOWN 303

Washington, and begun the work of redeeming
the Carolinas.

The troops which Cornwallis intended to join
had been sent in detachments to Virginia during
the winter and spring. The first body had arrived
early in January under the command of Arnold,
and a general marauding and ravaging took place.
A little later General Phillips arrived with rein-
forcements and took command. On May 13, Gen-
eral Phillips died, and a week later Cornwallis
appeared at Petersburg, assumed control, and sent
Arnold back to New York.

Meantime Washington, though relieved by
Morgan's and Greene's admirable work, had a
most trying and unhappy winter and spring. He
sent every man he could spare, and more than he
ought to have spared, to Greene, and he stripped
himself still further when the invasion of Virginia
began. But for the most part he was obliged,
from lack of any naval strength, to stand helplessly
by and see more and more British troops sent to
the south, and witness the ravaging of his native
State, without any ability to prevent it. To these
grave trials was added a small one, which stung
him to the quick. The British came up the Poto-
mac, and Lund Washington, in order to preserve
Mount Vernon, gave them refreshments, and
treated them in a conciliatory manner. He meant
well but acted ill, and Washington wrote : —

"It would have been a less painful circumstance
to me to have heard that, in consequence of your

304 GEORGE WASHINGTON

non-compliance with their request, they had burnt
my house and laid the plantation in ruins. You
ought to have considered yourself as my represen-
tative, and should have reflected on the bad ex-
ample of communicating with the enemy, and
making a voluntary offer of refreshments to them,
with a view to prevent a conflagration. "

What a clear glimpse this little episode gives of
the earnestness of the man who wrote these lines.
He could not bear the thought that any favor
should be shown him on any pretense. He was
ready to take his share of the marauding and pil-
laging with the rest, but he was deeply indignant
at the idea that any one representing him should
even appear to ask a favor of the British.

Altogether, the spring of 1781 was very trying,
for there was nothing so galling to Washington as
to be unable to fight. He wanted to get to the
south, but he was bound hand and foot by lack of
force. Yet the obstacles did not daunt or depress
him. He wrote in June that he felt sure of bring-
ing the war to a happy conclusion, and in the divi-
sion of the British forces he saw his opportunity
taking shape. Greene had the southern forces well
in hand. Cornwallis was equally removed from
Clinton on the north and Rawdon on the south, and
had come within reach; so that if he could but
have naval strength he could fall upon Cornwallis
with superior force and crush him. In naval mat-
ters fortune thus far had dealt hardly with him,
yet he could not but feel that a French fleet of

YORKTOWN 305

sufficient force must soon come. He grasped the
situation with a master-hand, and began to pre-
pare the way. Still he kept his counsel strictly to
himself, and set to work to threaten, and if pos-
sible to attack, New York, not with much hope of
succeeding in any such attempt, but with a view of
frightening Clinton and of inducing him either to
withdraw troops from Virginia, or at least to with-
hold reinforcements. As he began his Virginian
campaign in this distant and remote fashion at the
mouth of the Hudson, he was cheered by news that
De Grasse, the French admiral, had sent recruits
to Newport, and intended to come himself to the
American coast. He at once wrote De Grasse not
to determine absolutely to come to New York,
hinting that it might prove more advisable to
operate to the southward. It required great tact
to keep the French fleet where he needed it, and
yet not reveal his intentions, and nothing showed
Washington's foresight more plainly than the
manner in which he made the moves in this cam-
paign, when miles of space and weeks of time
separated him from the final object of his plans.
To trace this mastery of details, and the skill
with which every point was remembered and cov-
ered, would require a long and minute narrative.
They can only be indicated here sufficiently to show
how exactly each movement fitted in its place, and
how all together brought the great result.

Fortified by the good news from De Grasse,
Washington had an interview with De Kocham-

306 GEORGE WASHINGTON

beau, and effected a junction with the French army.
Thus strengthened, he opened his campaign against
Cornwallis by beginning a movement against Clin-
ton. The troops were massed above the city, and
an effort was made to surprise the upper posts and
destroy Delancey's partisan corps. The attempt,
although well planned, failed of its immediate
purpose, giving Washington opportunity only for
an effective reconnoissance of the enemy's posi-
tions. But the move was perfectly successful in
its real and indirect object. Clinton was alarmed.
He began to write to Cornwallis that troops should
be returned to New York, and he gave up abso-
lutely the idea of sending more men to Virginia.
Having thus convinced Clinton that New York
was menaced, Washington then set to work to
familiarize skillfully the minds of his allies and of
Congress with the idea of a southern campaign.
With this end in view, he wrote on August 2 that,
if more troops arrived from Virginia, New York
would be impracticable, and that the next point
was the south. The only contingency, as he set
forth, was the all-important one of obtaining naval
superiority. August 15 this essential condition
gave promise of fulfillment, for on that day definite
news arrived that De Grasse with his fleet was on
his way to the Chesapeake. Without a moment's
hesitation, Washington began to move, and at the
same time he sent an urgent letter to the New Eng-
land governors, demanding troops with an earnest-
ness which he had never surpassed.

YORKTOWN 307

In Virginia, meanwhile, during these long mid-
summer days, while Washington was waiting and
planning, Cornwallis had been going up and down,
harrying, burning, and plundering. His cavalry
had scattered the legislature, and driven Governor
Jefferson in headlong flight over the hills, while
property to the value of more than three millions
had been destroyed. Lafayette, sent by Washing-
ton to maintain the American cause, had been too
weak to act decisively, but he had been true to his
general's teaching, and, refusing battle, had hung
upon the flanks of the British and harassed and
checked them. Joined by Wayne, he had fought
an unsuccessful engagement at Green Springs, but
brought off his army, and with steady pertinacity
followed the enemy to the coast, gathering strength
as he moved. Now, when all was at last ready,
Washington began to draw his net about Corn-
wallis, whom he had been keenly watching during
the victorious marauding of the summer. On the
news of the coming of the French fleet, he wrote
to Lafayette to be prepared to join him when he
reached Virginia, to retain Wayne, who intended
to join Greene, and to stop Cornwallis at all haz-
ards, if he attempted to go southward.

Cornwallis, however, had no intention of mov-
ing. He had seen the peril of his position, and
had wished to withdraw to Charleston; but the
ministry, highly pleased with his performances,
wished him to remain on the Chesapeake, and de-
cisive orders came to him to take a permanent post

308 GEORGE WASHINGTON

in that region. Clinton, moreover, was jealous of
Cornwallis, and, impressed and deceived by Wash-
ington's movements, he not only sent no reinforce-
ments, but detained three thousand Hessians, who
had lately arrived. Cornwallis, therefore, had no
choice, and with much writing for aid, and some
protesting, he obeyed his orders, planted himself
at Yorktown and Gloucester, and proceeded to for-
tify, while Lafayette kept close watch upon him.
Cornwallis was a good soldier and a clever man,
suffering, as Burgoyne did, from a stupid ministry
and a dull and jealous commander-in-chief. Thus
hampered and burdened, he was ready to fall a
victim to the operations of a really great general,
whom his official superiors in England undervalued
and despised.

August 17, as soon as he had set his own ma-
chinery in motion, Washington wrote to De Grasse
to meet him in the Chesapeake. He was working
now more anxiously and earnestly than at any
time in the Revolution, not merely because he felt
that success depended on the blow, but because he
descried a new and alarming danger. He had
perceived it in June, and the idea pursued him
until all was over, and kept recurring in his let-
ters during this strained and eager summer. To
Washington's eyes, watching campaigns and gov-
ernment at home and the politics of Europe abroad,
the signs of exhaustion, of mediation, and of com-
ing peace across the Atlantic were plainly visible.
If peace should come as things then were, America

YORKTOWN 309

would get independence, and be shorn of many of
her most valuable possessions. The sprawling
British campaign of maraud and plunder, so bad
in a military point of view, and about to prove fatal
to Cornwallis, would, in case of sudden cessation
of hostilities, be capable of the worst construction.
Time, therefore, had become of the last impor-
tance. The decisive blow must be given at once,
and before the slow political movements could come
to a head. On July 14, Washington had his plan
mapped out. He wrote in his diary : —

"Matters having now come to a crisis, and a
decided plan to be determined on, I was obliged —
from the shortness of Count De Grasse's promised
stay on this coast, the apparent disinclination of
their naval officers to force the harbor of New
York, and the feeble compliance of the States with
my requisitions for men hitherto, and the little
prospect of greater exertions in future — to give
up all ideas of attacking New York, and instead
thereof to remove the French troops and a detach-
ment from the American army to the Head of Elk,
to be transported to Virginia for the purpose of
cooperating with the force from the West Indies
against the troops in that State."

Like most of Washington's plans, this one was
clear-cut and direct, and looks now simple enough,
but at the moment it was hedged with almost in-
conceivable difficulties at every step. The ever-
present and ever-growing obstacles at home were
there as usual. Appeals to Morris for money

310 GEORGE WASHINGTON

were met by the most discouraging responses, and
the States seemed more lethargic than ever. Nei-
ther men nor supplies could be obtained; neither
transportation nor provision for the march could
be promised. Then, too, in addition to all this,
came a wholly new set of stumbling-blocks arising
among the allies. Everything hinged on the naval
force. Washington needed it for a short time
only; but for that crucial moment he must have
not only superiority but supremacy at sea. Every
French ship that could be reached must be in the
Chesapeake, and Washington had had too many
French fleets slip away from him at the last mo-
ment and bring everything to naught to take any
chances in this direction. To bring about his naval
supremacy required the utmost tact and good man-
agement, and that he succeeded is one of the chief
triumphs of the campaign. In fact, at the very
outset he was threatened in this quarter with a
serious defection. De Barras, with the squadron
of the American station, was at Boston, and it was
essential that he should be united with De Grasse
at Yorktown. But De Barras was nettled by the
favoritism which had made De Grasse, his junior
in service, his superior in command. He deter-
mined therefore to take advantage of his orders
and sail away to the north to Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, and leave De Grasse to fight it out
alone. It is a hard thing to beat an opposing
army, but it is equally hard to bring human jeal-
ousies and ambitions into the narrow path of

YORKTOWN 311

self-sacrifice and subordination. Alarmed beyond
measure at the suggested departure of the Boston
squadron, Washington wrote a letter, which De
Rochambeau signed with him, urging De Barras
to turn his fleet toward the Chesapeake. It was a
skillfully drawn missive, an adroit mingling of
appeals to honor and sympathy and of vigorous
demands to perform an obvious duty. The letter
did its work, the diplomacy of Washington was
successful, and De Barras suppressed his feelings
of disappointment, and agreed to go to the Chesa-
peake and serve under De Grasse.

This point made, Washington pushed on his
preparations, or rather pushed on despite his lack
of preparations, and on August 17, as has been
said, wrote to De Grasse to meet him in the Chesa-
peake. He left the larger part of his own troops
with Heath, to whom in carefully drawn instruc-
tions he intrusted the grave duty of guarding the
Hudson and watching the British in New York.
This done, he gathered his forces together, and on
August 21 the army started on its march to the
south. On the 23d and 24th it crossed the Hud-
son, without annoyance from the British of any
kind. Washington had threatened New York so
effectively, and manoeuvred so successfully, that
Clinton could not be shaken in his belief that the
real object of the Americans was his own army;
and it was not until September 6 that he fully real-
ized that his enemy was going to the south, and
that Cornwallis was in danger. He even then

312 GEORGE WASHINGTON

hesitated and delayed, but finally dispatched Ad-
miral Graves with the fleet to the Chesapeake.
The Admiral came upon the French early on Sep-
tember 5, the very day that Washington was re-
joicing in the news that De Grasse had arrived in
the Chesapeake and had landed St. Simon and
three thousand men to support Lafayette. As
soon as the English fleet appeared, the French,
although many of their men were on shore, sailed
out and gave battle. An indecisive action ensued,
in which the British suffered so much that five days
later they burned one of their frigates and with-
drew to New York. De Grasse returned to his
anchorage, to find that De Barras had come in from
Newport with eight ships and ten transports carry-
ing ordnance.

While everything was thus moving well toward
the consummation of the campaign, Washington,
in the midst of his delicate and important work of
breaking camp and beginning his rapid march to
the south, was harassed by the ever-recurring diffi-
culties of the feeble and bankrupt government of
the confederation. He wrote again and again to
Morris for money, and finally got some. His de-
mands for men and supplies remained almost un-
heeded, but somehow he got provisions enough to
start. He foresaw the most pressing need, and
sent messages in all directions for shipping to
transport his army down the Chesapeake. No one
responded, but still he gathered the transports;
at first a few, then more, and finally, after many

YORKTOWN 313

delays, enough to move his army to Yorktown. The
spectacle of such a struggle, so heroically made,
one would think, might have inspired every soul
on the continent with enthusiasm ; but at this very
moment, while Washington was breaking camp and
marching southward, Congress was considering the
reduction of the army ! — which was as appropriate
as it would have been for the English Parliament
to have reduced the navy on the eve of Trafalgar,
or for Lincoln to have advised the restoration of
the army to a peace footing while Grant was fight-
ing in the Wilderness. The fact was that the
Continental Congress was weakened in ability and
very tired in point of nerve and will-power. They
saw that peace was coming, and naturally thought
that the sooner they could get it the better. They
entirely failed to see, as Washington saw, that in
a too sudden peace lurked the danger of the uti
possidetis, and that the mere fact of peace by no
means implied necessarily complete success. They
did not, of course, effect their reductions, but they
remained inert, and so for the most part did the
state governments, becoming drags upon the wheels
of war instead of helpers to the man who was driv-
ing the Revolution forward to its goal. Both state
and confederate governments still meant well, but
they were worn out and relaxed. Yet over and
through all these heavy masses of misapprehension
and feebleness, Washington made his way. Here
again all that can be said is that somehow or other
the thing was done. We can take account of the

314 GEORGE WASHINGTON

resisting forces, but we cannot tell just how they
were dealt with. We only know that one strong
man trampled them down and got what he wanted
done.

Pushing on after the joyful news of the arrival
of De Grasse had been received, Washington left
the army to go by water from the Head of Elk,
and hurried to Mount Vernon, accompanied by De
Rochambeau. It was six years since he had seen
his home. He had left it a Virginian colonel, full
of forebodings for his country, with a vast and
unknown problem awaiting solution at his hands.
He returned to it the first soldier of his day, after
six years of battle and trial, of victory and defeat,
on the eve of the last and crowning triumph. As
he paused on the well-beloved spot, and gazed
across the broad and beautiful river at his feet,
thoughts and remembrances must have come throng-
ing to his mind which it is given to few men to
know. He lingered there two days, and then press-
ing on again, was in Williamsburg on the 14th,
and on the 17th went on board the Ville de Paris
to congratulate De Grasse on his victory, and to
concert measures for the siege.

The meeting was most agreeable. All had gone
well, all promised well, and everything was smil-
ing and harmonious. Yet they were on the eve
of the greatest peril which occurred in the cam-
paign. Washington had managed to scrape to-
gether enough transports ; but his almost unassisted
labors had taken time, and delay had followed.

YORKTOWN 315

Then the transports were slow, and winds and
tides were uncertain, and there was further delay.
The interval permitted De Grasse to hear that the
British fleet had received reinforcements, and to
become nervous in consequence. He wanted to get
out to sea; the season was advancing, and he was
anxious to return to the West Indies ; and above
all he did not wish to fight in the bay. He there-
fore proposed firmly and vigorously to leave two
ships in the river, and stand out to sea with his
fleet. The Yorktown campaign began to look as
if it had reached its conclusion. Once again
Washington wrote one of his masterly letters of
expostulation and remonstrance, and once more he
prevailed, aided by the reasoning and appeals of
Lafayette, who carried the message. De Grasse
consented to stay, and Washington, grateful be-
yond measure, wrote him that "a great mind knows
how to make personal sacrifice to secure an im-
portant general good." Under the circumstances,
and in view of the general truth of this compli-
mentary sentiment, one cannot help rejoicing that
De Grasse had "a great mind."

At all events he stayed, and thereafter every-
thing went well. The northern army landed at
Williamsburg and marched for Yorktown on the
28th. They reconnoitred the outlying works the
next day, and prepared for an immediate assault ;
but in the night Cornwallis abandoned all his out-
side works and withdrew into the town. Washing-
ton thereupon advanced at once, and prepared for

316 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the siege. On the night of the 5th, the trenches
were opened only six hundred yards from the ene-
my's line, and in three days the first parallel was
completed. On the 11th the second parallel was
begun, and on the 14th the American batteries
played on the two advanced redoubts with such
effect that the breaches were pronounced practi-
cable. Washington at once ordered an assault.
The smaller redoubt was stormed by the Ameri-
cans under Hamilton and taken in ten minutes.
The other, larger and more strongly garrisoned,
was carried by the French with equal gallantry,
after half an hour's fighting. During the assault
Washington stood in an embrasure of the grand
battery watching the advance of the men. He was
always given to exposing himself recklessly when
there was fighting to be done, but not when he was
only an observer. This night, however, he was
much exposed to the enemy's fire. One of his
aides, anxious and disturbed for his safety, told
him that the place was perilous. "If you think
so," was the quiet answer, "you are at liberty to
step back." The moment was too exciting, too
fraught with meaning, to think of peril. The old
fighting spirit of Braddock's field was unchained
for the last time. He would have liked to head
the American assault, sword in hand, and as he
could not do that he stood as near his troops as he
could, utterly regardless of the bullets whistling
in the air about him. Who can wonder at his
intense excitement at that moment ? Others saw

YORKTOWN 317

a brilliant storming of two outworks, but to Wash-
ington the whole Revolution, and all the labor
and thought and conflict of six years were culmi-
nating in the smoke and din on those redoubts,
while out of the dust and heat of the sharp quick
fight success was coming. He had waited long,
and worked hard, and his whole soul went out as
he watched the troops cross the abattis and scale
the works. He could have no thought of danger
then, and when all was over he turned to Knox and
said, "The work is done, and well done. Bring
me my horse. "

Washington was not mistaken. The work was
indeed done. Tarletbn early in the siege had
dashed out against Lauzun on the other side of the
river and been repulsed. Cornwallis had been
forced back steadily into the town, and his re-
doubts, as soon as taken, were included in the sec-
ond parallel. A sortie to retake the redoubts
failed, and a wild attempt to transport the army
across the river was stopped by a gale of wind.
On the 17th Cornwallis was compelled to face
much bloody and useless slaughter, or to surren-
der. He chose the latter course, and after opening
negotiations and trying in vain to obtain delay,
finally signed the capitulation and gave up the
town. The next day the troops marched out and
laid down their arms. Over 7000 British and
Hessian troops surrendered. It was a crushing
defeat. The victorious army consisted in round
numbers of 5500 continentals, 3500 militia, and

318 GEORGE WASHINGTON

7000 French, and they were backed by the French
fleet with entire control of the sea.

When Washington had once reached Yorktown
with his fleet and army, the campaign was really
at an end, for he held Cornwallis in an iron grip
from which there was no escape. The masterly
part of the Yorktown campaign lay in the manner
in which it was brought about, in the management
of so many elements, and in the rapidity of move-
ment which carried an army without any proper
supplies or means of transportation from New York
to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The control of
the sea had been the great advantage of the British
from the beginning, and had enabled them to
achieve all that they ever gained. With these
odds against him, with no possibility of obtaining
a fleet of his own, Washington saw that his only
chance of bringing the war to a quick and suc-
cessful issue was by means of the French. It is
difficult to manage allied troops. It is still more
difficult to manage allied troops and an allied fleet.
Washington did both with infinite address, and
won. The chief factor of his success in this direc-
tion lay in his profound personal influence on all
men with whom he came in contact. His courtesy
and tact were perfect, but he made no concessions,
and never stooped. The proudest French noble
who came here shrank from disagreement with the
American general, and yet not one of them had
anything but admiration and respect to express
when they wrote of Washington in their memoirs,

YORKTOWN 319

diaries, and letters. He impressed them one and
all with a sense of power and greatness which could
not be disregarded. Many times he failed to get
the French fleet in cooperation, but finally it came.
Then he put forth all his influence and all his ad-
dress, and thus he got De Barras to the Chesa-
peake, and kept De Grasse at Yorktown.

This was one side of the problem, the most es-
sential because everything hinged on the fleet, but
by no means the most harassing. The doubt about
the control of the sea made it impossible to work
steadily for a sufficient time toward any one end.
It was necessary to have a plan for every contin-
gency, and be ready to adopt any one of several
plans at short notice. With a foresight and judg-
ment that never failed, Washington planned an
attack on New York, another on Yorktown, and
a third on Charleston. The division of the Brit-
ish forces gave him his opportunity of striking at
one point with an overwhelming force, but there
was always the possibility of their suddenly re-
uniting. In the extreme south he felt reasonably
sure that Greene would hold Rawdon, but he
was obliged to deceive and amuse Clinton, and at
the same time, with a ridiculously inferior force, to
keep Cornwallis from marching to South Carolina.
Partly by good fortune, partly by skill, Cornwallis
was kept in Virginia, while by admirably managed
feints and threats Clinton was held in New York in
inactivity. When the decisive moment came, and
it was evident that the control of the sea was to be

320 GEORGE WASHINGTON

determined in the Chesapeake, Washington, over-
riding all sorts of obstacles, moved forward, despite
a bankrupt and inert government, with a rapidity
and daring which have been rarely equaled. It
was a bold stroke to leave Clinton behind at the
mouth of the Hudson, and only the quickness
with which it was done, and the careful deception
which had been practiced, made it possible. Once
at Yorktown, there was little more to do. The
combination was so perfect, and the judgment had
been so sure, that Cornwallis was crushed as help-
lessly as if he had been thrown before the car of
Juggernaut. There was really but little fighting,
for there was no opportunity to fight. Washing-
ton held the British in a vice, and the utter help-
lessness of Cornwallis, the entire inability of such
a good and gallant soldier even to struggle, are the
most convincing proofs of the military genius of
his antagonist.

CHAPTER XI

PEACE

Fortitude in misfortune is more common than
composure in the hour of victory. The bitter
medicine of defeat, however unpalatable, is usu-
ally extremely sobering, but the strong new wine
of success generally sets the heads of poor human-
ity spinning, and leads often to worse results than
folly. The capture of Cornwallis was enough to
have turned the strongest head, for the moment at
least, but it had no apparent effect upon the man
who had brought it to pass, and who, more than
any one else, knew what it meant. Unshaken and
undismayed in the New Jersey winter, and among
the complicated miseries of Valley Forge, Wash-
ington turned from the spectacle of a powerful
British army laying down their arms as coolly as
if he had merely fought a successful skirmish, or
repelled a dangerous raid. He had that rare gift,
the attribute of the strongest minds, of leaving
the past to take care of itself. He never fretted
over what could not be undone, nor dallied among
pleasant memories while aught still remained to
do. He wrote to Congress in words of quiet con-
gratulation, through which pierced the devout and

322 GEORGE WASHINGTON

solemn sense of the great deed accomplished, and
then, while the salvos of artillery were still boom-
ing in his ears, and the shouts of victory were still
rising about him, he set himself, after his fashion,
to care for the future and provide for the immedi-
ate completion of his work.

He wrote to De Grasse, urging him to join in
an immediate movement against Charleston, such
as he had already suggested, and he presented in
the strongest terms the opportunities now offered
for the sudden and complete ending of the strug-
gle. But the French admiral was by no means
imbued with the tireless and determined spirit of
Washington. He had had his fill even of victory,
and was so eager to get back to the West Indies,
where he was to fall a victim to Rodney, that
he would not even transport troops to Wilming-
ton. Thus deprived of the force which alone made
comprehensive and extended movements possible,
Washington returned, as he had done so often
before, to making the best of cramped circum-
stances and straitened means. He sent all the
troops he could spare to Greene, to help him in
wresting the southern States from the enemy, the
work to which he had in vain summoned De
Grasse. This done, he prepared to go north. On
his way he was stopped at Eltham by the illness
and death of his wife's son, John Custis, a blow
which he felt severely, and which saddened the
great victory he had just achieved. Still the busi-
ness of the State could not wait on private grief.

PEACE 323

He left the house of mourning, and, pausing for
an instant only at Mount Vernon, hastened on to
Philadelphia. At the very moment of victory,
and while honorable members were shaking each
other's hands and congratulating each other that
the war was now really over, the commander-in-
chief had fallen again to writing them letters in
the old strain, and was once more urging them to
keep up the army, while he himself gave his per-
sonal attention to securing a naval force for the
ensuing year, through the medium of Lafayette.
Nothing was ever finished with Washington until
it was really complete throughout, and he had as
little time for rejoicing as he had for despondency
or despair, while a British force still remained in
the country. He probably felt that this was as
untoward a time as he had ever met in a pretty
large experience of unsuitable occasions, for offer-
ing sound advice, but he was not deterred thereby
from doing it. This time, however, he was des-
tined to an agreeable disappointment, for on his
arrival at Philadelphia he found an excellent spirit
prevailing in Congress. That body was acting
cheerfully on his advice, it had filled the depart-
ments of the government, and set on foot such
measures as it could to keep up the army. So
Washington remained for some time at Philadel-
phia, helping and counseling Congress in its work,
and writing to the States vigorous letters, demand-
ing pay and clothing for the soldiers, ever upper-
most in his thoughts.

324 GEORGE WASHINGTON

But although Congress was compliant, Wash-
ington could not convince the country of the justice
of his views, and of the continued need of energetic
exertion. The steady relaxation of tone, which
the strain of a long and trying war had produced,
was accelerated by the brilliant victory of York-
town. Washington for his own part had but little
trust in the sense or the knowledge of his enemy.
He felt that Yorktown was decisive, but he also
thought that Great Britain would still struggle on,
and that her talk of peace was very probably a
mere blind, to enable her to gain time, and, by
taking advantage of our relaxed and feeble condi-
tion, to strike again in hope of winning back all
that had been lost. He therefore continued his
appeals in behalf of the army, and reiterated every-
where the necessity for fresh and ample prepara-
tions.

As late as May 4 he wrote sharply to the States
for men and money, saying that the change of
ministry was likely to be adverse to peace, and
that we were being lulled into a false and fatal
sense of security. A few days later, on receiving
information from Sir Guy Carleton of the address
of the Commons to the king for peace, Washing-
ton wrote to Congress : " For my own part, I view
our situation as such that, instead of relaxing, we
ought to improve the present moment as the most
favorable to our wishes. The British nation ap-
pear to me to be staggered, and almost ready to
sink beneath the accumulating weight of debt and

PEACE 325

misfortune. If we follow the blow with vigor and
energy, I think the game is our own."

Again he wrote in July: "Sir Guy Carleton is
using every art to soothe and lull our people into
a state of security. Admiral Digby is capturing
all our vessels, and suffocating as fast as possible
in prison-ships all our seamen who will not enlist
into the service of his Britannic Majesty; and
Haldimand, with his savage allies, is scalping and
burning on the frontiers." Facts always were the
object of Washington's first regard, and while
gentlemen on all sides were talking of peace, war
was going on, and he could not understand the
supineness which would permit our seamen to be
suffocated, and our borderers scalped, because some
people thought the war ought to be and practically
was over. While the other side was fighting, he
wished to be fighting too. A month later he wrote
to Greene: "From the former infatuation, dupli-
city, and perverse system of British policy, I con-
fess I am induced to doubt everything, to suspect
everything." He could say heartily with the Tro-
jan priest, "Quicquid id est timeo Danaos et dona
ferentes." Yet again, a month later still, when
the negotiations were really going forward in Paris,
he wrote to McHenry : " If we are wise, let us pre-
pare for the worst. There is nothing which will
so soon produce a speedy and honorable peace as
a state of preparation for war ; and we must either
do this, or lay our account to patch up an inglori-
ous peace, after all the toil, blood, and treasure we
have spent."

326 GEORGE WASHINGTON

No man had done and given so much as Wash-
ington, and at the same time no other man had his
love of thoroughness, and his indomitable fighting
temper. He found few sympathizers, his words
fell upon deaf ears, and he was left to struggle on
and maintain his ground as best he might, without
any substantial backing. As it turned out, Eng-
land was more severely wounded than he dared to
hope, and her desire for peace was real. But
Washington's distrust and the active policy which
he urged were, in the conditions of the moment,
perfectly sound, both in a military and a political
point of view. It made no real difference, how-
ever, whether he was right or wrong in his opin-
ion. He could not get what he wanted, and he
was obliged to drag through another year, fettered
in his military movements, and oppressed with
anxiety for the future. He longed to drive the
British from New York, and was forced to content
himself, as so often before, with keeping his army
in existence. It was a trying time, and fruitful
in nothing but anxious forebodings. All the fight-
ing was confined to skirmishes of outposts, and his
days were consumed in vain efforts to obtain help
from the States, while he watched with painful
eagerness the current of events in Europe, down
which the fortunes of his country were feebly
drifting.

Among the petty incidents of the year there was
one which, in its effects, gained an international
importance, which has left a deep stain upon the

PEACE 327

English arms, and which touched Washington
deeply. Captain Huddy, an American officer,
was captured in a skirmish and carried to New
York, where he was placed in confinement.
Thence he was taken on April 12 by a party of
Tories in the British service, commanded by Cap-
tain Lippencott, and hanged in the broad light of
day on the heights near Middletown. Testimony
and affidavits to the fact, which was never ques-
tioned, were duly gathered and laid before Wash-
ington. The deed was one of wanton barbarity,
for which it would be difficult to find a parallel in
the annals of modern warfare. The authors of
this brutal murder, to our shame be it said, were
of American birth, but they were fighting for the
crown and wore the British uniform. England,
which for generations has deafened the world with
paeans of praise for her own love of fair play and
for her generous humanity, stepped in here and
threw the mantle of her protection over these
cowardly hangmen. It has not been uncommon
for wild North American savages to deliver up
criminals to the vengeance of the law, but English
ministers and officers condoned the murder of
Huddy, and sheltered his murderers.

When the case was laid before Washington it
stirred him to the deepest wrath. He submitted
the facts to twenty -five of his general officers, who
unanimously advised what he was himself deter-
mined upon, instant retaliation. He wrote at once
to Sir Guy Carleton, and informed him that unless

328 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the murderers were given up he should be com-
pelled to retaliate. Carleton replied that a court-
martial was ordered, and some attempt was made
to recriminate ; but Washington pressed on in the
path he had marked out, and had an English offi-
cer selected by lot and held in close confinement to
await the action of the enemy. These sharp mea-
sures brought the British, as nothing else could
have done, to some sense of the enormity of the
crime that had been committed. Sir Guy Carleton
wrote in remonstrance, and Washington replied :
"Ever since the commencement of this unnatural
war my conduct has borne invariable testimony
against those inhuman excesses, which, in too many
instances, have marked its progress. With respect
to a late transaction, to which I presume your
excellency alludes, I have already expressed my
resolution, a resolution formed on the most mature
deliberation, and from which I shall not recede."
The affair dragged along, purposely protracted by
the British, and the court-martial on a technical
point acquitted Lippencott. Sir Guy Carleton,
however, who really was deeply indignant at the
outrage, wrote, expressing his abhorrence, dis-
avowed Lippencott, and promised a further in-
quiry. This placed Washington in a very trying
position, more especially as his humanity was
touched by the situation of the unlucky hostage.
The fatal lot had fallen upon a mere boy, Captain
Asgill, who was both amiable and popular, and
Washington was beset with appeals in his behalf,

PEACE 329

for Lady Asgill moved heaven and earth to save
her son. She interested the French court, and Ver-
gennes made a special request that Asgill should be
released. Even Washington's own officers, not-
ably Hamilton, sought to influence him, and begged
him to recede. In these difficult circumstances,
which were enhanced by the fact that contrary to
his orders to select an unconditional prisoner, the
lot had fallen on a Yorktown prisoner protected by
the terms of the capitulation,1 he hesitated, and
asked instructions from Congress. He wrote to
Duane in September : " While retaliation was ap-
parently necessary, however disagreeable in itself,
I had no repugnance to the measure. But when
the end proposed by it is answered by a disavowal
of the act, by a dissolution of the board of refu-
gees, and by a promise (whether with or without
meaning to comply with it, I shall not determine)
that further inquisition should be made into the
matter, I thought it incumbent upon me, before
I proceeded any farther in the matter, to have the
sense of Congress, who had most explicitly ap-
proved and impliedly indeed ordered retaliation
to take place. To this hour I am held in dark-
ness."

He did not long remain in doubt. The fact
was that the public, as is commonly the case, had
forgotten the original crime and saw only the mis-
ery of the man who was to pay the just penalty,
and who was, in this instance, an innocent and

1 MS. letter to Lincoln.

330 GEORGE WASHINGTON

vicarious sufferer. It was difficult to refuse Ver-
gennes, and Congress, glad of the excuse and anx-
ious to oblige their allies, ordered the release of
Asgill. That Washington, touched by the un-
happy condition of his prisoner, did not feel re-
lieved by the result, it would be absurd to suppose.
But he was by no means satisfied, for the murder-
ous wrong that had been done rankled in his breast.
He wrote to Vergennes : " Captain Asgill has been
released, and is at perfect liberty to return to the
arms of an affectionate parent, whose pathetic
address to your Excellency could not fail of inter-
esting every feeling heart in her behalf. I have
no right to assume any particular merit from the
lenient manner in which this disagreeable affair
has terminated."

There is a perfect honesty about this which is
very wholesome. He had been freely charged
with cruelty, and had regarded the accusation with
indifference. Now, when it was easy for him to
have taken the glory of mercy by simply keeping
silent, he took pains to avow that the leniency was
not due to him. He was not satisfied, and no one
should believe that he was, even if the admission
seemed to justify the charge of cruelty. If he
erred at all it was in not executing some British
officer at the very start, unless Lippencott had
been given up within a limited time. As it was,
after delay was once permitted, it is hard to see
how he could have acted otherwise than he did, but
Washington was not in the habit of receding from

PEACE 331

a fixed purpose, and being obliged to do so in this
case troubled him, for he knew that he did well to
be angry. But the frankness of the avowal to
Vergennes is a good example of his entire honesty
and absolute moral fearlessness.

The matter, however, which most filled his heart
and mind during these weary days of waiting and
doubt was the condition and the future of his sol-
diers. To those persons who have suspected or
suggested that Washington was cold-blooded and
unmindful of others, the letters he wrote in regard
to the soldiers may be commended. The man
whose heart was wrung by the sufferings of the
poor people on the Virginian frontier, in the days
of the old French war, never in fact changed his
nature. Fierce in fight, passionate and hot when
his anger was stirred, his love and sympathy were
keen and strong toward his army. His heart went
out to the brave men who had followed him, loved
him, and never swerved in their loyalty to him
and to their country. Washington's affection for
his men, and their devotion to him, had saved
the cause of American independence more ofteh
than strategy or daring. Now, when the war was
practically over, his influence with both officers
and soldiers was destined to be put to its severest
tests.

The people of the American colonies were self-
governing in the extremest sense, that is, they
were accustomed to very little government inter-
ference of any sort. They were also poor and

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cropped out as soon as he was appointed, and
came up in one form or another whenever he was
obliged to take strong measures. Even at the
very end, after he had borne the cause through to
triumph, Congress was driven almost to frenzy
because Vergennes proposed to commit the dispo-
sition of a French subsidy to the commander-in-
chief.

PEACE 333

If this feeling could show itself toward Wash-
ington, it is easy to imagine that it was not re-
strained toward his officers and men, and the treat-
ment of the soldiers by Congress and by the States
was not only ungrateful to the last degree, but
was utterly unpardonable. Again and again the
menace of immediate ruin and the stern demands
of Washington alone extorted the most grudging
concessions, and saved the army from dissolution.
The soldiers had every reason to think that no-
thing but personal fear could obtain the barest
consideration from the civil power. In this frame
of mind, they saw the war which they had fought
and won drawing to a close with no prospect of
either provision or reward for them, and every in-
dication that they would be disbanded when they
were no longer needed, and left in many cases to
beggary and want. In the inaction consequent
upon the victory at Yorktown, they had ample time
to reflect upon these facts, and their reflections
were of such a nature that the situation soon be-
came dangerous. Washington, who had struggled
in season and out of season for justice to the sol-
diers, labored more zealously than ever during all
this period, aided vigorously by Hamilton, who was
now in Congress. Still nothing was done, and in
October, 1782, he wrote to the Secretary of War in
words warm with indignant feeling : " While I pre-
mise that no one I have seen or heard of appears op-
posed to the principle of reducing the army as cir-
cumstances may require, yet I cannot help fearing

334 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the result of the measure in contemplation, under
present circumstances, when I see such a number
of men, goaded by a thousand stings of reflection
on the past and of anticipation on the future, about
to be turned into the world, soured by penury and
what they call the ingratitude of the public, in-
volved in debts, without one farthing of money to
carry them home after having spent the flower of
their days, and many of them their patrimonies,
in establishing the freedom and independence of
their country, and suffered everything that human
nature is capable of enduring on this side of death.
. . . You may rely upon it, the patriotism and
long-suffering of this army are almost exhausted,
and that there never was so great a spirit of dis-
content as at this instant. While in the field I
think it may be kept from breaking into acts of
outrage ; but when we retire into winter-quarters,
unless the storm is previously dissipated, I cannot
be at ease respecting the consequences. It is high
time for a peace."

These were grave words, coming from such a
man as Washington, but they passed unheeded.
Congress and the States went blandly along as if
everything was all right, and as if the army had
no grievances. But the soldiers thought differ-
ently. "Dissatisfactions rose to a great and
alarming height, and combinations among officers
to resign at given periods in a body were begin-
ning to take place." The outlook was so threaten-
ing that Washington, who had intended to go to

PEACE 335

Mount Vernon, remained in camp, and by man-
agement and tact thwarted these combinations and
converted these dangerous movements into an ad-
dress to Congress from the officers, asking for half-
pay, arrearages, and some other equally proper
concessions. Still Congress did not stir. Some
indefinite resolutions were passed, but nothing was
done as to the commutation of half -pay into a fixed
sum, and after such a display of indifference the
dissatisfaction increased rapidly, and the army
became more and more restless. In March a call
was issued for a meeting of officers, and an anony-
mous address, written with much skill, — the
work, as afterwards appeared, of Major John Arm-
strong, — was published at the same time. The
address was well calculated to inflame the passions
of the troops ; it advised a resort to force, and was
scattered broadcast through the camp. The army
was now in a ferment, and the situation was full
of peril. A weak man would have held his peace;
a rash one would have tried to suppress the meet-
ing. Washington did neither, but quietly took
control of the whole movement himself. In gen-
eral orders he censured tha call and the address as
irregular, and then appointed a time and place for
the meeting. Another anonymous address there-
upon appeared, quieter in tone, but congratulating
the army on the recognition accorded by the com-
mander-in-chief.

When the officers assembled, Washington arose
with a manuscript in his hand, and as he took out

336 GEORGE WASHINGTON

his glasses said, simply, "You see, gentlemen, I
have grown both blind and gray in your service."
His address was brief, calm, and strong. The
clear, vigorous sentences were charged with mean-
ing and with deep feeling. He exhorted them one
and all, both officers and men, to remain loyal and
obedient, true to their glorious past and to their
country. He appealed to their patriotism, and
promised them that which they had always had,
his own earnest support in obtaining justice from
Congress. When he had finished he quietly with-
drew. The officers were deeply moved by his
words, and his influence prevailed. Resolutions
were passed, reiterating the demands of the army,
but professing entire faith in the government.
This time Congress listened, and the measures
granting half -pay in commutation and certain other
requests were passed. Thus this very serious dan-
ger was averted, not by the reluctant action of
Congress, but by the wisdom and strength of the
general, who was loved by his soldiers after a
fashion that few conquerors could boast.

Underlying all these general discontents, there
was, besides, a well-defined movement, which saw
a solution of all difficulties and a redress of all
wrongs in a radical change of the form of govern-
ment, and in the elevation of Washington to su-
preme power. This party was satisfied that the
existing system was a failure, and that it was not
and could not be made either strong, honest, or
respectable. The obvious relief was in some kind

PEACE 337

of monarchy, with a large infusion of the one-man
power; and it followed, as a matter of course, that
the one man could be no other than the com-
mander-in-chief. In May, 1782, when the feeling
in the army had risen very high, this party of
reform brought their ideas before Washington
through an old and respected friend of his, Colonel
Nicola. The colonel set forth very clearly the
failure and shortcomings of the existing govern-
ment, argued in favor of the substitution of some-
thing much stronger, and wound up by hinting
very plainly that his correspondent was the man
for the crisis and the proper savior of society.
The letter was forcible and well written, and Colo-
nel Nicola was a man of character and standing.
It could not be passed over lightly or in silence,
and Washington replied as follows : —

"With a mixture of surprise and astonishment,
I have read with attention the sentiments you have
submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no
occurrence in the course of the war has given me
more painful sensations than your information of
there being such ideas existing in the army as you
have expressed, and [which] I must view with
abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the
present, the communication of them will rest in my
own bosom, unless some further agitation of the
matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am
much at a loss to conceive what part of my con-
duct could have given encouragement to an address
which seems to me big with the greatest mischiefs

338 GEORGE WASHINGTON

that can befall my country. If I am not deceived
in the knowledge of myself, you could not have
found a person to whom your schemes are more
disagreeable. At the same time, in justice to my
own feelings, I must add that no man possesses a
more sincere wish to see justice done to the army
than I do; and as far as my power and influence
in a constitutional way extend, they shall be em-
ployed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it,
should there be any occasion. Let me conjure
you, then, if you have any regard for your coun-
try, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect
for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind,
and never communicate, as from yourself or any
one else, a sentiment of the like nature."

This simple but exceedingly plain letter checked
the whole movement at once; but the feeling of
hostility to the existing system of government and
of confidence in Washington increased steadily
through the summer and winter. When the next
spring had come round, and the "Newburgh ad-
dresses" had been published, the excitement was
at fever heat. All the army needed was a leader.
It was as easy for Washington to have grasped
supreme power then, as it would have been for
Caesar to have taken the crown from Antony upon
the Lupercal. He repelled Nicola's suggestion
with quiet reproof, and took the actual movement,
when it reared its head, into his own hands and
turned it into other channels. This incident has
been passed over altogether too carelessly by his-

PEACE 339

torians and biographers. It has generally been
used merely to show the general nobility of Wash-
ington's sentiments, and no proper stress has been
laid upon the facts of the time which gave birth to
such an idea and such a proposition. It would
have been a perfectly feasible thing at that par-
ticular moment to have altered the frame of gov-
ernment and placed the successful soldier in pos-
session of supreme power. The notion of kingly
government was, of course, entirely familiar to
everybody, and had in itself nothing repulsive.
The confederation was disintegrated, the States
were demoralized, and the whole social and politi-
cal life was weakened. The army was the one
coherent, active, and thoroughly organized body in
the country. Six years of war had turned them
from militia into seasoned veterans, and they stood
armed and angry, ready to respond to the call of
the great leader to whom they were entirely de-
voted. When the English troops were once with-
drawn, there was nothing on the continent that
could have stood against them. If they had moved,
they would have been everywhere supported by
their old comrades who had returned to the ranks
of civil life, by all the large class who wanted
peace and order in the quickest and surest way,
and by the timid and tired generally. There would
have been in fact no serious opposition, probably
because there would have been no means of sus-
taining it.

The absolute feebleness of the general govern-

340 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ment was shown a few weeks later, when a recently
recruited regiment of Pennsylvania troops muti-
nied, and obliged Congress to leave Philadelphia,
unable either to defend themselves or procure
defense from the State. This mutiny was put
down suddenly and effectively by Washington,
very wroth at the insubordination of raw troops,
who had neither fought nor suffered. Yet even
such mutineers as these would have succeeded in
a large measure, had it not been for Washington,
and one can easily imagine from this incident the
result of disciplined and well-planned action on
the part of the army led by their great chief. In
that hour of debility and relaxation, a military
seizure of the government and the erection of some
form of monarchy would not have been difficult.
Whether such a change would have lasted is an-
other question, but there is no reason to doubt
that at the moment it might have been effected.
Washington, however, not only refused to have
anything to do with the scheme, but he used the
personal loyalty which might have raised him to
supreme power to check all dangerous movements
and put in motion the splendid and unselfish pa-
triotism for which the army was conspicuous, and
which underlay all their irritations and discontents.
The obvious view of Washington's action in this
crisis as a remarkable exhibition of patriotism is
at best somewhat superficial. In a man in any
way less great, the letter of refusal to Nicola and
the treatment of the opportunity presented at the

PEACE 341

time of the Newburgh addresses would have been
fine in a high degree. In Washington they were
not so extraordinary, for the situation offered him
no temptation. Carlyle was led to think slight-
ingly of Washington, one may believe, because
he did not seize the tottering government with a
strong hand, and bring order out of chaos on the
instant. But this is a woeful misunderstanding of
the man. To put aside a crown for love of coun-
try is noble, but to look down upon such an op-
portunity indicates a much greater loftiness and
strength of mind. Washington was wholly free
from the vulgar ambition of the usurper, and the
desire of mere personal aggrandizement found no
place in his nature. His ruling passion was the
passion for success, and for thorough and complete
success. What he could not bear was the least
shadow of failure. To have fought such a war to
a victorious finish, and then turned it to his own
advantage, would have been to him failure of the
meanest kind. He fought to free the colonies
from England, and make them independent, not
to play the part of a Caesar or a Cromwell in the
wreck and confusion of civil war. He flung aside
the suggestion of supreme power, not simply as
dishonorable and unpatriotic, but because such a
result would have defeated the one great and noble
object at which he aimed. Nor did he act in this
way through any indolent shrinking from the great
task of making what he had won worth winning,
by crushing the forces of anarchy and separation,

342 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and bringing order and unity out of confusion.
From the surrender of Yorktown to the day of his
retirement from the Presidency, he worked unceas-
ingly to establish union and strong government in
the country he had made independent. He accom-
plished this great labor more successfully by hon-
est and lawful methods than if he had taken the
path of the strong-handed savior of society, and
his work in this field did more for the welfare of
his country than all his battles. To have restored
order at the head of the army was much easier than
to effect it in the slow and law-abiding fashion
which he adopted. To have refused supreme rule,
and then to have effected in the spirit and under
the forms of free government all and more than
the most brilliant of military chiefs could have
achieved by absolute power, is a glory which be-
longs to Washington alone.

Nevertheless, at that particular juncture it was,
as he himself had said, "high time for a peace."
The danger at Newburgh had been averted by his
commanding influence and the patriotic conduct of
the army. But it had been averted only, not re-
moved. The snake was scotched, not killed. The
finishing stroke was still needed in the form of an
end to hostilities, and it was therefore fortunate
for the United States that a fortnight later, on
March 23, news came that a general treaty of
peace had been signed. This final consummation
of his work, in addition to the passage by Congress
of the half -pay commutation and the settlement of

PEACE 343

the army accounts, filled Washington with deep
rejoicing. He felt that in a short time, a few
weeks at most, he would be free to withdraw to the
quiet life at Mount Vernon for which he longed.
But public bodies move slowly, and one delay after
another occurred to keep him still in the harness.
He chafed under the postponement, but it was not
possible to him to remain idle even when he awaited
in almost daily expectation the hour of dismissal.
He saw with the instinctive glance of statesman-
ship that the dangerous point in the treaty of
peace was in the provisions as to the western posts
on the one side, and those relating to British debts
on the other. A month therefore had not passed
before he brought to the attention of Congress
the importance of getting immediate possession of
those posts, and a little later he succeeded in hav-
ing Steuben sent out as a special envoy to obtain
their surrender. The mission was vain, as he had
feared. He was not destined to extract this thorn
for many years, and then only after many trials
and troubles. Soon afterward he made a journey
with Governor Clinton to Ticonderoga, and along
the valley of the Mohawk, "to wear away the
time," as he wrote to Congress. He wore away
time to more purpose than most people, for where
he traveled he observed closely, and his observa-
tions were lessons which he never forgot. On this
trip he had the western posts and the Indians
always in mind, and familiarized himself with the
conditions of a part of the country where these
matters were of great importance.

344 GEORGE WASHINGTON

On his return he went to Princeton, where Con-
gress had been sitting since their flight from the
mutiny which he had recently suppressed, and
where a house had been provided for his use. He
remained there two months, aiding Congress in
their work. During the spring he had been en-
gaged on the matter of a peace establishment, and
he now gave Congress elaborate and well-matured
advice on that question, and on those of public
lands, western settlement, and the best Indian
policy. In all these directions his views were
clear, far-sighted, and wise. He saw that in these
questions was involved much of the future develop-
ment and wellbeing of the country, and he treated
them with a precision and an easy mastery which
showed the thought he had given to the new prob-
lems which now were coming to the front. Un-
luckily, he was so far ahead, both in knowledge
and perception, of the body with which he dealt,
that he could get little or nothing done, and in
September he wrote in plain but guarded terms
of the incapacity of the lawmakers. The people
were not yet ripe for his measures, and he was
forced to bide his time, and see the injuries caused
by indifference and short-sightedness work them-
selves out. Gradually, however, the absolutely
necessary business was brought to an end. Then
Washington issued a circular letter to the govern-
ors of the States, which was one of the ablest he
ever wrote, and full of the profoundest statesman-
ship, and he also sent out a touching address of

PEACE 345

farewell to the army, eloquent with wisdom and
with patriotism.

From Princeton he went to West Point, where
the army that still remained in service was sta-
tioned. Thence he moved to Harlem, and on
November 25 the British army departed, and
Washington, with his troops, accompanied by
Governor Clinton and some regiments of local
militia, marched in and took possession. This
was the outward sign that the war was over,
and that American independence had been won.
Carleton feared that the entry of the American
army might be the signal for confusion and vio-
lence, in which the Tory inhabitants would suffer ;
but everything passed off with perfect tranquillity
and good order, and in the evening Governor
Clinton gave a public dinner to the commander-
in-chief and the officers of the army.

All was now over, and Washington prepared to
go to Annapolis and lay down his commission.
On December 4 his officers assembled in Fraunces'
Tavern to bid him farewell. As he looked about
on his faithful friends, his usual self-command
deserted him, and he could not control his voice.
Taking a glass of wine, he lifted it up, and said
simply, "With a heart full of love and gratitude
I now take my leave of you, most devoutly wishing
that your latter days may be as prosperous and
happy as your former ones have been glorious and
honorable.' ' The toast was drunk in silence, and
then Washington added, "I cannot come to each

346 GEORGE WASHINGTON

of you and take my leave, but shall be obliged if
you will come and take me by the hand." One by
one they approached, and Washington grasped the
hand of each man and embraced him. His eyes
were full of tears, and he could not trust himself
to speak. In silence he bade each and all fare-
well, and then, accompanied by his officers, walked
to Whitehall Ferry. Entering his barge, the word
was given, and as the oars struck the water he
stood up and lifted his hat. In solemn silence his
officers returned the salute, and watched the noble
and gracious figure of their beloved chief until the
boat disappeared from sight behind the point of
the Battery.

At Philadelphia he stopped a few days and
adjusted his accounts, which he had in character-
istic fashion kept himself in the neatest and most
methodical way. He had drawn no pay, and had
expended considerable sums from his private for-
tune, which he had omitted to charge to the gov-
ernment. The gross amount of his expenses was
about 15,000 pounds sterling, including secret ser-
vice and other incidental outlays. In these days
of wild money -hunting, there is something worth
pondering in this simple business settlement be-
tween a great general and his government, at the
close of eight years of war. This done, he started
again on his journey. From Philadelphia he pro-
ceeded to Annapolis, greeted with addresses and
hailed with shouts at every town and village on
his route, and having reached his destination, he

PEACE 347

addressed a letter to Congress on December 20,
asking when it would be agreeable to them to
receive him. The 23d was appointed, and on that
day, at noon, he appeared before Congress.

The following year a French orator and "maitre
avocat," in an oration delivered at Toulouse upon
the American Revolution, described this scene in
these words: "On the day when Washington
resigned his commission in the hall of Congress, a
crown decked with jewels was placed upon the
Book of the Constitutions. Suddenly Washington
seizes it, breaks it, and flings the pieces to the
assembled people. How small ambitious Caesar
seems beside the hero of America." It is worth
while to recall this contemporary French descrip-
tion, because its theatrical and dramatic untruth
gives such point by contrast to the plain and dig-
nified reality. The scene was the hall of Con-
gress. The members representing the sovereign
power were seated and covered, while all the space
about was filled by the governor and state officers
of Maryland, by military officers, and by the ladies
and gentlemen of the neighborhood, who stood in
respectful silence with uncovered heads. Wash-
ington was introduced by the Secretary of Con-
gress, and took a chair which had been assigned
to him. There was a brief pause, and then the
president said that "the United States in Congress
assembled were prepared to receive his communi-
cation." Washington rose, and replied as fol-
lows : —

348 GEORGE WASHINGTON

"Mr. President: The great events, on which
my resignation depended, having at length taken
place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere
congratulations to Congress, and of presenting my-
self before them, to surrender into their hands the
trust committed to me, and to claim the indul-
gence of retiring from the service of my country.

" Happy in the confirmation of our independence
and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity
afforded the United States of becoming a respect-
able nation, I resign with satisfaction the appoint-
ment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in
my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which,
however, was superseded by a confidence in the
rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme
power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.
The successful termination of the war has verified
the most sanguine expectations ; and my gratitude
for the interposition of Providence, and the assist-
ance I have received from my countrymen, in-
creases with every review of the momentous con-
test." Then, after a word of gratitude to the
army and to his staff, he concluded as follows: "I
consider it an indispensable duty to close this last
solemn act of my official life by commending the
interests of our dearest country to the protection
of Almighty God, and those who have the super-
intendence of them to his holy keeping.

"Having now finished the work assigned me, I
retire from the great theatre of action ; and bid-
ding an affectionate farewell to this august body,
under whose orders I have so long acted, I here

PEACE 349

offer my commission, and take my leave of all the
employments of public life."

In singularly graceful and eloquent words his
old opponent, Thomas Mifflin, the president, re-
plied, the simple ceremony ended, and Washington
left the room a private citizen.

The great master of English fiction, touching
this scene with skillful hand, has said: "Which
was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed,
the opening feast of Prince George in London, or
the resignation of Washington? Which is the
noble character for after ages to admire, — yon
fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder
hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless
honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomi-
table, and a consummate victory?"

There is no need to say more. Comment or
criticism on such a farewell, from such a man, at
the close of a long civil war, would be not only
superfluous but impertinent. The contemporary
newspaper, in its meagre account, said that the
occasion was deeply solemn and affecting, and that
many persons shed tears. Well indeed might
those then present have been thus affected, for they
had witnessed a scene memorable forever in the
annals of all that is best and noblest in human
nature. They had listened to a speech which was
not equaled in meaning and spirit in American
history until, eighty years later, Abraham Lincoln
stood upon the slopes of Gettysburg and uttered
his immortal words upon those who died that the
country might live.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A,

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