QUESTION OF AN ATTACK ON PHILADELPHIA—GENERAL REED AT
HEAD-QUARTERS—ENEMY’S WORKS RECONNOITRED—OPINIONS IN A COUNCIL OF
WAR—EXPLOIT OF LAFAYETTE—RECEIVES COMMAND OF A DIVISION—MODIFICATION
OF THE BOARD OF WAR—GATES TO PRESIDE—LETTER OF LOVELL—SALLY
FORTH OF GENERAL HOWE—EVOLUTIONS AND SKIRMISHES—CONWAY
INSPECTOR-GENERAL—CONSULTATION ABOUT WINTER-QUARTERS—DREARY MARCH TO
VALLEY FORGE—HUTTING—WASHINGTON’S VINDICATORY LETTERS—RETROSPECT OF
THE YEAR.
On the evening of the 24th of November Washington reconnoitred,
carefully and thoughtfully, the lines and defences about Philadelphia,
from the opposite side of the Schuylkill. His army was now considerably
reinforced; the garrison was weakened by the absence of a large body of
troops under Lord Cornwallis in the Jerseys. Some of the general
officers thought this an advantageous moment for an attack upon the
city. Such was the opinion of Lord Stirling; and especially of General
Wayne, Mad Anthony, as he was familiarly called, always eager for some
daring enterprise. The recent victory at Saratoga had dazzled the public
mind, and produced a general impatience for something equally striking
and effective in this quarter. Reed, Washington’s former secretary, now
a brigadier-general, shared largely in this feeling. He had written a
letter to Gates, congratulating him on having “reduced his proud and
insolent enemy to the necessity of laying his arms at his feet;”
assuring him that it would “enroll his name with the happy few who shine
in history, not as conquerors, but as distinguished generals. I have for
some time,” adds he, “volunteered with this army, which, notwithstanding
the labors and efforts of its amiable chief, has yet gathered no
laurels.”[103]
Reed was actually at head-quarters as a volunteer, again enjoying much
of Washington’s confidence, and anxious that he should do something to
meet the public wishes. Washington was aware of this prevalent feeling,
and that it was much wrought on by the intrigues of designing men, and
by the sarcasms of the press. He was now reconnnoitring the enemy’s
works to judge of the policy of the proposed attack. “A vigorous
exertion is under consideration,” writes Reed; “God grant it may be
successful!”[104]
Every thing in the neighborhood of the enemy’s lines bore traces of the
desolating hand of war. Several houses, owned probably by noted
patriots, had been demolished; others burnt. Villas stood roofless;
their doors and windows, and all the woodwork, had been carried off to
make huts for the soldiery. Nothing but bare walls remained. Gardens had
been trampled down and destroyed; not a fence nor fruit-tree was to be
seen. The gathering gloom of a November evening heightened the sadness
of this desolation.
With an anxious eye Washington scrutinized the enemy’s works. They
appeared to be exceeding strong. A chain of redoubts extended along the
most commanding ground from the Schuylkill to the Delaware. They were
framed, planked, and of great thickness, and were surrounded by a deep
ditch, enclosed and fraised. The intervals were filled with an abatis,
in constructing which all the apple trees of the neighborhood, beside
forest trees, had been sacrificed.[105]
The idea of Lord Stirling and those in favor of an attack, was, that it
should be at different points at daylight; the main body to attack the
lines to the north of the city, while Greene, embarking his men in boats
at Dunk’s Ferry, and passing down the Delaware, and Potter, with a body
of Continentals and militia, moving down the west side of the
Schuylkill, should attack the eastern and western fronts.
Washington saw that there was an opportunity for a brilliant blow, that
might satisfy the impatience of the public, and silence the sarcasms of
the press; but he saw that it must be struck at the expense of a fearful
loss of life.
Returning to camp, he held a council of war of his principal officers,
in which the matter was debated at great length and with some warmth;
but without coming to a decision. At breaking up, Washington requested
that each member of the council would give his opinion the next morning
in writing, and he sent off a messenger in the night for the written
opinion of General Greene.
Only four members of the council, Stirling, Wayne, Scott and Woodford,
were in favor of an attack; of which Lord Stirling drew up the plan.
Eleven (including Greene) were against it, objecting, among other
things, that the enemy’s lines were too strong and too well supported,
and their force too numerous, well disciplined and experienced, to be
assailed without great loss and the hazard of a failure.
Had Washington been actuated by mere personal ambition and a passion for
military fame, or had he yielded to the goadings of faction and the
press, he might have disregarded the loss and hazarded the failure; but
his patriotism was superior to his ambition; he shrank from a glory that
must be achieved at such a cost, and the idea of an attack was
abandoned.
General Reed, in a letter to Thomas Wharton, president of Pennsylvania,
endeavors to prevent the cavilling of that functionary and his
co-legislators; who, though they had rendered very slender assistance in
the campaign, were extremely urgent for some striking achievement. “From
my own feelings,” writes he, “I can easily judge of yours and the
gentlemen round, at the seeming inactivity of this army for so long a
time. I know it is peculiarly irksome to the general, whose own judgment
led to more vigorous measures; but there has been so great a majority of
his officers opposed to every enterprising plan, as fully justifies his
conduct.” At the same time Reed confesses that he himself concurs with
the great majority, who deemed an attack upon Philadelphia too
hazardous.
A letter from General Greene received about this time, gave Washington
some gratifying intelligence about his youthful friend, the Marquis de
Lafayette. Though not quite recovered from the wound received at the
battle of Brandywine, he had accompanied General Greene as a volunteer
in his expedition into the Jerseys, and had been indulged by him with an
opportunity of gratifying his belligerent humor, in a brush with
Cornwallis’s outposts. “The marquis,” writes Greene, “with about four
hundred militia and the rifle corps, attacked the enemy’s picket last
evening, killed about twenty, wounded many more, and took about twenty
prisoners. The marquis is charmed with the spirited behavior of the
militia and rifle corps; they drove the enemy above half a mile, and
kept the ground until dark. The enemy’s picket consisted of about three
hundred, and were reinforced during the skirmish. The marquis is
determined to be in the way of danger.”[106]
Lafayette himself, at the request of Greene, wrote an animated yet
modest account of the affair to Washington. “I wish,” observes he, “that
this little success of ours may please you, though a very trifling one,
I find it very interesting on account of the behavior of our
soldiers.”[107]
Washington had repeatedly written to Congress in favor of giving the
marquis a command equal to his nominal rank, in consideration of his
illustrious and important connections, the attachment he manifested to
the cause, and the discretion and good sense he had displayed on various
occasions. “I am convinced,” said he, “he possesses a large share of
that military ardor which generally characterizes the nobility of his
country.”
Washington availed himself of the present occasion to support his former
recommendations, by transmitting to Congress an account of Lafayette’s
youthful exploit. He received, in return, an intimation from that body,
that it was their pleasure he should appoint the marquis to the command
of a division in the Continental army. The division of General Stephen
at this time was vacant; that veteran officer, who had formerly won
honor for himself in the French war, having been dismissed for
misconduct at the battle of Germantown, the result of intemperate
habits, into which he unfortunately had fallen. Lafayette was forthwith
appointed to the command of that division.
At this juncture (November 27th), a modification took place in the Board
of War, indicative of the influence which was operating in Congress. It
was increased from three to five members: General Mifflin, Joseph
Trumbull, Richard Peters, Colonel Pickering, and last, though certainly
not least, General Gates. Mifflin’s resignation of the commission of
quartermaster-general had recently been accepted; but that of
major-general was continued to him, though without pay. General Gates
was appointed president of the board, and the President of Congress was
instructed to express to him, in communicating the intelligence, the
high sense which that body entertained of his abilities, and peculiar
fitness to discharge the duties of that important office, upon the right
execution of which the success of the American cause so eminently
depended; and to inform him it was their intention to continue his rank
as major-general, and that he might officiate at the board or in the
field, as occasion might require; furthermore, that he should repair to
Congress with all convenient despatch, to enter upon the duties of his
appointment. It was evidently the idea of the cabal that Gates was
henceforth to be the master spirit of the war. His friend Lovell,
chairman of the committee of foreign relations, writes to him on the
same day to urge him on. “We want you at different places; but we want
you most near Germantown. Good God! What a situation we are in; how
different from what might have been justly expected! You will be
astonished when you know accurately what numbers have at one time and
another been collected near Philadelphia, to wear out stockings, shoes
and breeches. Depend upon it, for every ten soldiers placed under the
command of our Fabius, five recruits will be wanted annually during the
war. The brave fellows at Fort Mifflin and Red Bank have despaired of
succor, and been obliged to quit. The naval departments have fallen into
circumstances of seeming disgrace. Come to the Board of War, if only for
a short season. * * * * If it was not for the defeat of Burgoyne, and
the strong appearances of a European war, our affairs are Fabiused into
a very disagreeable posture.”[108]
While busy faction was thus at work, both in and out of Congress, to
undermine the fame and authority of Washington, General Howe, according
to his own threat, was preparing to “drive him beyond the mountains.”
On the 4th of December, Captain Allen McLane, a vigilant officer already
mentioned, of the Maryland line, brought word to head-quarters, that an
attack was to be made that very night on the camp at White Marsh.
Washington made his dispositions to receive the meditated assault, and,
in the mean time, detached McLane with one hundred men to reconnoitre.
The latter met the van of the enemy about eleven o’clock at night, on
the Germantown Road; attacked it at the Three Mile Run, forced it to
change its line of march, and hovered about and impeded it throughout
the night. About three o’clock in the morning the alarm-gun announced
the approach of the enemy. They appeared at daybreak, and encamped on
Chestnut Hill, within three miles of Washington’s right wing.
Brigadier-general James Irvine, with six hundred of the Pennsylvania
militia, was sent out to skirmish with their light advanced parties. He
encountered them at the foot of the hill, but after a short conflict, in
which several were killed and wounded, his troops gave way and fled in
all directions, leaving him and four or five of his men wounded on the
field, who were taken prisoners.
General Howe passed the day in reconnoitring, and at night changed his
ground, and moved to a hill on the left, and within a mile of the
American line. It was his wish to have a general action; but to have it
on advantageous terms. He had scrutinized Washington’s position and
pronounced it inaccessible. For three days he manœuvred to draw him from
it, shifting his own position occasionally, but still keeping on
advantageous ground. Washington was not to be decoyed. He knew the vast
advantages which superior science, discipline and experience, gave the
enemy in open field fight, and remained within his lines. All his best
officers approved of his policy. Several sharp skirmishes occurred at
Edge Hill and elsewhere, in which Morgan’s riflemen and the Maryland
militia were concerned. There was loss on both sides, but the Americans
gave way before a great superiority of numbers.
In one of these skirmishes General Reed had a narrow escape. He was
reconnoitring the enemy at Washington’s request, when he fell in with
some of the Pennsylvania militia who had been scattered, and endeavored
to rally and lead them forward. His horse was shot through the head, and
came with him to the ground; the enemy’s flankers were running to
bayonet him, as he was recovering from his fall, when Captain Allen
McLane came up in time with his men to drive them off and rescue him. He
was conveyed from the field by a light-horseman.[109]
On the 7th there was every appearance that Howe meditated an attack on
the left wing. Washington’s heart now beat high, and he prepared for a
warm and decisive action. In the course of the day he rode through every
brigade, giving directions how the attack was to be met, and exhorting
his troops to depend mainly on the bayonet. His men were inspirited by
his words, but still more by his looks, so calm and determined; for the
soldier regards the demeanor more than the words of his general in the
hour of peril.
The day wore away with nothing but skirmishes, in which Morgan’s
riflemen, and the Maryland militia under Colonel Gist, rendered good
service. An attack was expected in the night, or early in the morning;
but no attack took place. The spirit manifested by the Americans in
their recent contests, had rendered the British commanders cautious.
The next day, in the afternoon, the enemy were again in motion; but
instead of advancing, filed off to the left, halted, and lit up a long
string of fires on the heights; behind which they retreated, silently
and precipitately, in the night. By the time Washington received
intelligence of their movement, they were in full march by two or three
routes for Philadelphia. He immediately detached light parties to fall
upon their rear, but they were too far on the way for any but
light-horse to overtake them.
An intelligent observer writes to President Wharton from the camp: “As
all their movements, added to their repeated declarations of driving
General Washington over the Blue Mountains, were calculated to assure us
of their having come out with the determination to fight, it was thought
prudent to keep our post upon the hills, near the church. I understand
it was resolved if they did not begin the attack soon, to have fought
them at all events, it not being supposed that they could, consistent
with their own feelings, have secretly stolen into the city so suddenly
after so long gasconading on what they intended to do.”[110]
Here then was another occasion of which the enemies of Washington
availed themselves to deride his cautious policy. Yet it was clearly
dictated by true wisdom. His heart yearned for a general encounter with
the enemy. In his despatch to the President of Congress, he writes, “I
sincerely wish that they had made an attack; as the issue, in all
probability, from the disposition of our troops and the strong situation
of our camp, would have been fortunate and happy. At the same time I
must add, that reason, prudence, and every principle of policy forbade
us from quitting our post to attack them. Nothing but success would have
justified the measure; and this could not be expected from their
position.”
At this time, one of the earliest measures recommended by the Board of
War, and adopted by Congress, showed the increasing influence of the
cabal; two inspectors-general were to be appointed for the promotion of
discipline and reformation of abuses in the army; and one of the persons
chosen for this important office was Conway, with the rank, too, of
major-general! This was tacitly in defiance of the opinion so fully
expressed by Washington of the demerits of the man, and the ruinous
effects to be apprehended from his promotion over the heads of
brigadiers of superior claims. Conway, however, was the secret colleague
of Gates, and Gates was now the rising sun.
Winter had now set in with all its severity. The troops, worn down by
long and hard service, had need of repose. Poorly clad, also, and almost
destitute of blankets, they required a warmer shelter than mere tents
against the inclemencies of the season. The nearest towns which would
afford winter-quarters, were Lancaster, York and Carlisle; but should
the army retire to either of these, a large and fertile district would
be exposed to be foraged by the foe, and its inhabitants, perhaps, to be
dragooned into submission.
Much anxiety was felt by the Pennsylvania Legislature on the subject,
who were desirous that the army should remain in the field. General
Reed, in a letter to the president of that body, writes: “A line of
winter-quarters has been proposed and supported by some of his
[Washington’s] principal officers; but I believe I may assure you he
will not come into it, but take post as near the enemy, and cover as
much of the country as the nakedness and wretched condition of some part
of the army will admit. To keep the field entirely is impracticable, and
so you would think if you saw the plight we were in. You will soon know
the plan, and as it has been adopted principally upon the opinions of
the gentlemen of this State, I hope it will give satisfaction to you and
the gentlemen around you. If it is not doing what we would, it is doing
what we can; and I must say the general has shown a truly feeling and
patriotic respect for us on this occasion, in which you would agree with
me, if you knew all the circumstances.”
The plan adopted by Washington, after holding a council of war, and
weighing the discordant opinions of his officers, was to hut the army
for the winter at Valley Forge, in Chester County, on the west side of
the Schuylkill, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. Here he would be
able to keep a vigilant eye on that city, and at the same time protect a
great extent of country.
Sad and dreary was the march to Valley Forge; uncheered by the
recollection of any recent triumph, as was the march to winter-quarters
in the preceding year. Hungry and cold were the poor fellows who had so
long been keeping the field; for provisions were scant, clothing worn
out, and so badly off were they for shoes, that the footsteps of many
might be tracked in blood. Yet at this very time we are told, “hogsheads
of shoes, stockings and clothing, were lying at different places on the
roads and in the woods, perishing for want of teams, or of money to pay
the teamsters.”[111]
Such were the consequences of the derangement of the commissariat.
Arrived at Valley Forge on the 17th, the troops had still to brave the
wintry weather in their tents, until they could cut down trees and
construct huts for their accommodation. Those who were on the sick list
had to seek temporary shelter wherever it could be found, among the
farmers of the neighborhood. According to the regulations in the orderly
book, each hut was to be fourteen feet by sixteen; with walls of logs
filled in with clay, six feet and a half high; the fireplaces were of
logs plastered; and logs split into rude planks or slabs furnished the
roofing. A hut was allotted to twelve non-commissioned officers and
soldiers. A general officer had a hut to himself. The same was allowed
to the staff of each brigade and regiment, and the field officer of each
regiment; and a hut to the commissioned officers of each company. The
huts of the soldiery fronted on streets. Those of the officers formed a
line in the rear, and the encampment gradually assumed the look of a
rude military village.
Scarce had the troops been two days employed in these labors when,
before daybreak on the 22d, word was brought that a body of the enemy
had made a sortie toward Chester apparently on a foraging expedition.
Washington issued orders to General Huntington and Varnum, to hold their
troops in readiness to march against them. Their replies bespeak the
forlorn state of the army. “Fighting will be far preferable to
starving,” writes Huntington. “My brigade are out of provisions, nor can
the commissary obtain any meat. I have used every argument my
imagination can invent to make the soldiers easy, but I despair of being
able to do it much longer.”
“It’s a very pleasing circumstance to the division under my command,”
writes Varnum, “that there is a probability of their marching; three
days successively we have been destitute of bread. Two days we have been
entirely without meat. The men must be supplied, or they cannot be
commanded.”
In fact, a dangerous mutiny had broken out among the famishing troops in
the preceding night, which their officers had had great difficulty in
quelling.
Washington instantly wrote to the President of Congress on the subject.
“I do not know from what cause this alarming deficiency, or rather total
failure of supplies arises; but unless more vigorous exertions and
better regulations take place in that line (the commissaries’
department) immediately, the army must dissolve. I have done all in my
power by remonstrating, by writing, by ordering the commissaries on this
head, from time to time; but without any good effect, or obtaining more
than a present scanty relief. Owing to this, the march of the army has
been delayed on more than one interesting occasion, in the course of the
present campaign; and had a body of the enemy crossed the Schuykill this
morning, as I had reason to expect, the divisions which I ordered to be
in readiness to march and meet them could not have moved.”
Scarce had Washington despatched this letter, when he learnt that the
Legislature of Pennsylvania had addressed a remonstrance to Congress
against his going into winter-quarters, instead of keeping in the open
field. This letter, received in his forlorn situation, surrounded by an
unhoused, scantily clad, half-starved army, shivering in the midst of
December’s snow and cold, put an end to his forbearance, and drew from
him another letter to the President of Congress, dated on the 23d, which
we shall largely quote; not only for its manly and truthful eloquence,
but for the exposition it gives of the difficulties of his situation,
mainly caused by unwise and intermeddling legislation.
And first as to the commissariat:—
“Though I have been tender, heretofore,” writes he, “of giving any
opinion, or lodging complaints, as the change in that department took
place contrary to my judgment, and the consequences thereof were
predicted; yet, finding that the inactivity of the army, whether for
want of provisions, clothes, or other essentials, is charged to my
account, not only by the common vulgar, but by those in power, it is
time to speak plain in exculpation of myself. With truth, then, I can
declare, that no man, in my opinion, ever had his measures more impeded
than I have by every department of the army.
“Since the month of July, we have had no assistance from the
quartermaster-general; and to want of assistance from this department,
the commissary-general charges great part of his deficiency. To this I
am to add, that notwithstanding it is a standing order, and often
repeated, that the troops shall always have two days’ provisions by
them, that they might be ready at any sudden call; yet an opportunity
has scarcely ever offered of taking an advantage of the enemy, that it
has not been either totally obstructed, or greatly impeded on this
account. * * * As a proof of the little benefit received from a
clothier-general, and as a further proof of the inability of an army,
under the circumstances of this, to perform the common duties of
soldiers (besides a number of men confined to hospitals for want of
shoes, and others in farmers’ houses on the same account), we have, by a
field return this day made, no less than two thousand eight hundred and
ninety-eight men now in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot,
and otherwise naked. By the same return, it appears that our whole
strength in Continental troops, including the eastern brigades, which
have joined us since the surrender of General Burgoyne, exclusive of the
Maryland troops sent to Wilmington, amounts to no more than eight
thousand two hundred in camp fit for duty; notwithstanding which, and
that since the 4th instant, our numbers fit for duty, from the hardships
and exposures they have undergone, particularly on account of blankets
(numbers having been obliged, and still are, to sit up all night by
fires, instead of taking comfortable rest in a natural and common way),
have decreased near two thousand men.
“We find gentlemen, without knowing whether the army was really going
into winter-quarters or not (for I am sure no resolution of mine could
warrant the remonstrance), reprobating the measure as much as if they
thought the soldiers were made of stocks or stones, and equally
insensible of frost and snow; and moreover, as if they conceived it
easily practicable for an inferior army, under the disadvantages I have
described ours to be—which are by no means exaggerated—to confine a
superior one, in all respects well appointed and provided for a winter’s
campaign, within the city of Philadelphia, and to cover from depredation
and waste the States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes this
matter still more extraordinary in my eye, is, that these very
gentlemen, who were well apprised of the nakedness of the troops from
ocular demonstration, who thought their own soldiers worse clad than
others, and who advised me near a month ago to postpone the execution of
a plan I was about to adopt, in consequence of a resolve of Congress for
seizing clothes, under strong assurances that an ample supply would be
collected in ten days, agreeably to a decree of the State (not one
article of which, by the by, is yet come to hand), should think a
winter’s campaign, and the covering of those States from the invasion of
an enemy, so easy and practicable a business. I can assure 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 and snow, without clothes or
blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the
naked and distressed soldiers, I feel abundantly for them, and, from my
soul, I pity those miseries, which it is neither in my power to relieve
nor prevent.
“It is for these reasons, therefore, that I have dwelt upon the subject;
and it adds not a little to my other difficulties and distress, to find
that much more is expected from me than is possible to be performed, and
that, upon the ground of safety and policy, I am obliged to conceal the
true state of the army from public view, and thereby expose myself to
detraction and calumny.”
In the present exigency, to save his camp from desolation, and to
relieve his starving soldiery, he was compelled to exercise the
authority recently given him by Congress, to forage the country round,
seize supplies wherever he could find them, and pay for them in money or
in certificates redeemable by Congress. He exercised these powers with
great reluctance; rurally inclined himself, he had a strong sympathy
with the cultivators of the soil, and ever regarded the yeomanry with a
paternal eye. He was apprehensive, moreover, of irritating the jealousy
of military sway, prevalent throughout the country, and of corrupting
the morals of the army. “Such procedures,” writes he to the President of
Congress, “may give a momentary relief; but if repeated, will prove of
the most pernicious consequence. Beside spreading disaffection, jealousy
and fear among the people, they never fail, even in the most veteran
troops, under the most rigid and exact discipline, to raise in the
soldiery a disposition to licentiousness, to plunder and robbery,
difficult to suppress afterward, and which has proved not only ruinous
to the inhabitants, but in many instances to armies themselves. I regret
the occasion that compelled us to the measure the other day, and shall
consider it the greatest of our misfortunes if we should be under the
necessity of practising it again.”
How truly in all these trying scenes of his military career, does the
patriot rise above the soldier!
With these noble and high-spirited appeals to Congress, we close
Washington’s operations for 1777; one of the most arduous and eventful
years of his military life, and one the most trying to his character and
fortunes. He began it with an empty army chest, and a force dwindled
down to four thousand half-disciplined men. Throughout the year he had
had to contend, not merely with the enemy, but with the parsimony and
meddlesome interference of Congress. In his most critical times that
body had left him without funds and without reinforcements. It had made
promotions contrary to his advice, and contrary to military usage;
thereby wronging and disgusting some of his bravest officers. It had
changed the commissariat in the very midst of a campaign, and thereby
thrown the whole service into confusion.
Among so many cross-purposes and discouragements, it was a difficult
task for Washington to “keep the life and soul of the army together.”
Yet he had done so. Marvellous indeed was the manner in which he had
soothed the discontents of his aggrieved officers, and reconciled them
to an ill-requiting service; and still more marvellous the manner in
which he had breathed his own spirit of patience and perseverance in his
yeoman soldiery, during their sultry marchings and countermarchings
through the Jerseys, under all kinds of privations, with no visible
object of pursuit to stimulate their ardor, hunting, as it were, the
rumored apparitions of an unseen fleet.
All this time, too, while endeavoring to ascertain and counteract the
operations of Lord Howe upon the ocean, and his brother upon the land,
he was directing and aiding military measures against Burgoyne in the
North. Three games were in a manner going on under his supervision. The
operations of the commander-in-chief are not always most obvious to the
public eye; victories may be planned in his tent, of which subordinate
generals get the credit; and most of the moves which ended in giving a
triumphant check to Burgoyne, may be traced to Washington’s shifting
camp in the Jerseys.
It has been an irksome task in some of the preceding chapters, to notice
the under-current of intrigue and management by which some part of this
year’s campaign was disgraced; yet even-handed justice requires that
such machinations should be exposed. We have shown how successful they
were in displacing the noble-hearted Schuyler from the head of the
Northern department; the same machinations were now at work to undermine
the commander-in-chief, and elevate the putative hero of Saratoga on his
ruins. He was painfully aware of them; yet in no part of the war did he
more thoroughly evince that magnanimity which was his grand
characteristic, than in the last scenes of this campaign, where he rose
above the tauntings of the press, the sneerings of the cabal, the
murmurs of the public, the suggestions of some of his friends, and the
throbbing impulses of his own courageous heart, and adhered to that
Fabian policy which he considered essential to the safety of the cause.
To dare is often the impulse of selfish ambition or harebrained valor:
to forbear is at times the proof of real greatness.