GATES IN THE ASCENDANT—THE CONWAY LETTER—SUSPICIONS—CONSEQUENT
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GATES AND WASHINGTON—WARNING LETTER FROM DR.
CRAIK—ANONYMOUS LETTERS—PROJECTED EXPEDITION TO CANADA—LAFAYETTE,
GATES, AND THE BOARD OF WAR.
While censure and detraction had dogged Washington throughout his
harassing campaign, and followed him to his forlorn encampment at Valley
Forge, Gates was the constant theme of popular eulogium, and was held up
by the cabal, as the only one capable of retrieving the desperate
fortunes of the South. Letters from his friends in Congress urged him to
hasten on, take his seat at the head of the Board of War, assume the
management of military affairs, and _save the country_!
Gates was not a strong-minded man. Is it a wonder, then, that his brain
should be bewildered by the fumes of incense offered up on every side?
In the midst of his triumph, however while feasting on the sweets of
adulation, came the withering handwriting on the wall! It is an epistle
from his friend Mifflin. “My dear General,” writes he, “an extract from
Conway’s letter to you has been procured and sent to head-quarters. The
extract was a collection of just sentiments, yet such as should not have
been intrusted to any of your family. General Washington enclosed it to
Conway without remarks. * * * * My dear General, take care of your
sincerity and frank disposition; they cannot injure yourself, but may
injure some of your best friends. Affectionately yours.”
Nothing could surpass the trouble and confusion of mind of Gates on the
perusal of this letter. Part of his correspondence with Conway had been
sent to head-quarters. But what part? What was the purport and extent of
the alleged extracts? How had they been obtained? Who had sent them?
Mifflin’s letter specified nothing; and this silence as to particulars,
left an unbounded field for tormenting conjecture. In fact, Mifflin knew
nothing in particular when he wrote; nor did any of the cabal. The
laconic nature of Washington’s note to Conway had thrown them all in
confusion. None knew the extent of the correspondence discovered, nor
how far they might be individually compromised.
Gates, in his perplexity, suspected that his portfolio had been
stealthily opened and his letters copied. But which of them?—and by
whom? He wrote to Conway and Mifflin, anxiously inquiring what part of
their correspondence had been thus surreptitiously obtained, and “who
was the villain that had played him this treacherous trick. There is
scarcely a man living,” says he, “who takes a greater care of his
letters than I do. I never fail to lock them up, and keep the key in my
pocket. * * * * No punishment is too severe for the wretch who betrayed
me and I doubt not your friendship for me, as well as your zeal for our
safety, will bring the name of this miscreant to light.”[112]
Gates made rigid inquiries among the gentlemen of his staff all
disavowed any knowledge of the matter. In the confusion and perturbation
of his mind, his suspicions glanced, or were turned, upon Colonel
Hamilton, as the channel of communication, he having had free access to
head-quarters during his late mission from the commander in-chief. In
this state of mental trepidation, Gates wrote, on the 8th of December,
the following letter to Washington.
“Sir:—I shall not attempt to describe what, as a private gentleman, I
cannot help feeling, on representing to my mind the disagreeable
situation in which confidential letters, when exposed to public
inspection, may place an unsuspecting correspondent; but, as a public
officer, I conjure your Excellency to give me all the assistance you can
in tracing the author of the infidelity which put extracts from General
Conway’s letters to me into your hands. Those letters have been
stealingly copied, but which of them, when, and by whom, is to me as yet
an unfathomable secret. * * * * It is, I believe, in your Excellency’s
power to do me and the United States a very important service, by
detecting a wretch who may betray me, and capitally injure the very
operations under your immediate directions. * * * The crime being
eventually so important, that the least loss of time may be attended
with the worst consequences, and it being unknown to me whether the
letter came to you from a member of Congress, or from an officer, I
shall have the honor of transmitting a copy of this to the president,
that the Congress may, in concert with your Excellency, obtain as soon
as possible a discovery which so deeply affects the safety of the
States. Crimes of that magnitude ought not to remain unpunished.” A copy
of this letter was transmitted by Gates to the President of Congress.
Washington replied with characteristic dignity and candor. “Your letter
of the 8th ultimo,” writes he (January 4th), “came to my hand a few days
ago, and, to my great surprise, informed me that a copy of it had been
sent to Congress, for what reason I find myself unable to account; but,
as some end was doubtless intended to be answered by it, I am laid under
the disagreeable necessity of returning my answer through the same
channel, lest any member of that honorable body should harbor an
unfavorable suspicion of my having practised some indirect means to come
at the contents of the confidential letters between you and General
Conway.
“I am to inform you, then, that Colonel Wilkinson, on his way to
Congress, in the month of October last, fell in with Lord Stirling at
Reading, and, not in confidence, that I ever understood, informed his
aide-de-camp, Major McWilliams, that General Conway had written this to
you: ‘Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak general
and bad counsellors would have ruined it.’ Lord Stirling, from motives
of friendship, transmitted the account with this remark: ‘The enclosed
was communicated by Colonel Wilkinson to Major McWilliams. Such wicked
duplicity of conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect.’”
Washington adds, that the letter written by him to Conway was merely to
show that gentleman that he was not unapprised of his intriguing
disposition. “Neither this letter,” continues he, “nor the information
which occasioned it, was ever directly or indirectly communicated by me
to a single officer in this army, out of my own family, excepting the
Marquis de Lafayette, who, having been spoken to on the subject by
General Conway, applied for and saw, under injunctions of secrecy, the
letter which contained Wilkinson’s information; so desirous was I of
concealing every matter that could, in its consequences, give the
smallest interruption to the tranquillity of this army, or afford a
gleam of hope to the enemy by dissensions therein.” * * * * “Till Lord
Stirling’s letter came to my hands, I never knew that General Conway,
whom I viewed in the light of a stranger to you, was a correspondent of
yours; much less did I suspect that I was the subject of your
confidential letters. Pardon me, then, for adding, that so far from
conceiving the safety of the States can be affected, or in the smallest
degree injured, by a discovery of this kind, or that I should be called
upon in such solemn terms to point out the author, I considered the
information as coming from yourself, and given with a view to forewarn,
and consequently to forearm me, against a secret enemy, or in other
words, a dangerous incendiary; in which character sooner or later this
country will know General Conway. But in this, as in other matters of
late, I have found myself mistaken.”
This clear and ample answer explained the enigma of the laconic note to
Conway, and showed that the betrayal of the defamatory correspondence
was due to the babbling of Wilkinson. Following the mode adopted by
Gates, Washington transmitted his reply through the hands of the
President of Congress, and thus this matter, which he had generously
kept secret, became blazoned before Congress and the world.
A few days after writing the above letter, Washington received the
following warning from his old and faithful friend, Dr. Craik, dated
from Maryland, Jan. 6th. “Notwithstanding your unwearied diligence and
the unparalleled sacrifice of domestic happiness and ease of mind which
you have made for the good of your country, yet you are not wanting in
secret enemies, who would rob you of the great and truly deserved esteem
your country has for you. Base and villainous men, through chagrin, envy
or ambition, are endeavoring to lessen you in the minds of the people,
and taking underhand methods to traduce your character. The morning I
left camp, I was informed that a strong faction was forming against you
in the new Board of War, and in the Congress. * * * * The method they
are taking is by holding General Gates up to the people, and making them
believe that you have had a number three or four times greater than the
enemy, and have done nothing; that Philadelphia was given up by your
management, and that you have had many opportunities of defeating the
enemy. It is said they dare not appear openly as your enemies; but that
the new Board of War is composed of such leading men, as will throw such
obstacles and difficulties in your way as to force you to resign.”[113]
An anonymous letter to Patrick Henry, dated from Yorktown, Jan. 12th,
says among other things, “We have only passed the Red Sea; a dreary
wilderness is still before us, and unless a Moses or a Joshua are raised
up in our behalf, we must perish before we reach the promised
land. * * * * But is our case desperate? By no means. We have wisdom,
virtue and strength enough to save us, if they could be called into
action. The Northern army has shown us what Americans are capable of
doing with a general at their head. The spirit of the Southern army is
no way inferior to the spirit of the Northern. A Gates, a Lee, or a
Conway, would in a few weeks render them an irresistible body of men.
The last of the above officers has accepted of the new office of
inspector-general of our army, in order to reform abuses; but the remedy
is only a palliative one. In one of his letters to a friend, he says, ‘a
great and good God hath decreed America to be free, or the [general] and
weak counsellors would have ruined her long ago.’”[114]
Another anonymous paper, probably by the same hand, dated January 17th,
and sent to Congress under a cover directed to the president, Mr.
Laurens, decried all the proceedings of the Southern army, declaring
that the proper method of attacking, beating and conquering the enemy,
had never as yet been adopted by the commander-in-chief; that the late
success to the Northward was owing to a change of the commanders; that
the Southern army would have been alike successful had a similar change
taken place. After dwelling on the evils and derangements prevalent in
every department, it draws the conclusion, “That the head cannot
possibly be sound, when the whole body is disordered; that the people of
America have been guilty of idolatry, by making a man their God, and the
God of heaven and earth will convince them by woful experience, that he
is only a man; that no good may be expected from the standing army until
Baal and his worshippers are banished from the camp.”[115]
Instead of laying this mischievous paper before Congress, Mr. Laurens
remitted it to Washington. He received the following reply: “I cannot
sufficiently express the obligation I feel to you for your friendship
and politeness, upon an occasion in which I am so deeply interested. I
was not unapprised that a malignant faction had been for some time
forming to my prejudice; which, conscious as I am of having ever done
all in my power to answer the important purposes of the trust reposed in
me, could not but give me some pain on a personal account. But my chief
concern arises from an apprehension of the dangerous consequences which
intestine dissensions may produce to the common cause.
“My enemies take an ungenerous advantage of me. They know the delicacy
of my situation, and that motives of policy deprive me of the defence I
might otherwise make against their insidious attacks. They know I cannot
combat their insinuations, however injurious, without disclosing secrets
which it is of the utmost moment to conceal. But why should I expect to
be exempt from censure, the unfailing lot of an elevated station? Merit
and talents, with which I can have no pretensions of rivalship, have
ever been subject to it. My heart tells me, that it has ever been my
unremitted aim to do the best that circumstances would permit; yet I may
have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means, and may in
many instances deserve the imputation of error.”
Gates was disposed to mark his advent to power by a striking operation.
A notable project had been concerted by him and the Board of War for a
winter irruption into Canada. An expedition was to proceed from Albany,
cross Lake Champlain on the ice, burn the British shipping at St. Johns,
and press forward to Montreal. Washington was not consulted in the
matter: the project was submitted to Congress, and sanctioned by them
without his privity.
One object of the scheme was to detach the Marquis de Lafayette from
Washington, to whom he was devotedly attached, and bring him into the
interests of the cabal. For this purpose he was to have the command of
the expedition; an appointment which it was thought would tempt his
military ambition. Conway was to be second in command, and it was
trusted that his address and superior intelligence would virtually make
him the leader.
The first notice that Washington received of the project was in a letter
from Gates, enclosing one to Lafayette, informing the latter of his
appointment, and requiring his attendance at Yorktown to receive his
instructions.
Gates, in his letter to Washington, asked his opinion and advice;
evidently as a matter of form. The latter expressed himself obliged by
the “polite request,” but observed that, as he neither knew the extent
of the objects in view, nor the means to be employed to effect them, it
was not in his power to pass any judgment upon the subject. He wished
success to the enterprise, “both as it might advance the public good and
confer personal honor on the Marquis de Lafayette, for whom he had a
very particular esteem and regard.”
The cabal, however, had overshot their mark. Lafayette, who was aware of
their intrigues, was so disgusted by the want of deference and respect
to the commander-in-chief evinced in the whole proceeding, that he would
at once have declined the appointment, had not Washington himself
advised him strongly to accept it.
He accordingly proceeded to Yorktown, where Gates already had his little
court of schemers and hangers on. Lafayette found him at table,
presiding with great hilarity, for he was social in his habits, and in
the flush of recent success. The young marquis had a cordial welcome to
his board, which in its buoyant conviviality contrasted with the sober
decencies of that of the thoughtful commander-in-chief in his dreary
encampment at Valley Forge. Gates, in his excitement, was profuse of
promises. Every thing was to be made smooth and easy for Lafayette. He
was to have at least two thousand five hundred fighting men under him.
Stark, the veteran Stark, was ready to co-operate with a body of Green
Mountain Boys. “Indeed,” cries Gates, chuckling, “General Stark will
have burnt the fleet before your arrival!”
It was near the end of the repast. The wine had circulated freely, and
toasts had been given according to the custom of the day. The marquis
thought it time to show his flag. One toast, he observed, had been
omitted, which he would now propose. Glasses were accordingly filled,
and he gave, “The commander-in-chief of the American armies.” The toast
was received without cheering.
Lafayette was faithful to the flag he had unfurled. In accepting the
command, he considered himself detached from the main army and under the
immediate orders of the commander-in-chief. He had a favorable opinion
of the military talents of Conway, but he was aware of the game he was
playing; he made a point, therefore, of having the Baron de Kalb
appointed to the expedition; whose commission being of older date than
that of Conway, would give him the precedence of that officer, and make
him second in command. This was reluctantly ceded by the cabal, who
found themselves baffled by the loyalty in friendship of the youthful
soldier.
Lafayette set out for Albany without any very sanguine expectations.
Writing to Washington from Flemington, amid the difficulties of winter
travel, he says: “I go on very slowly; sometimes drenched by rain,
sometimes covered with snow, and not entertaining many handsome thoughts
about the projected incursion into Canada. Lake Champlain is too cold
for producing the least bit of laurel; and, if I am not starved, I shall
be as proud as if I had gained three battles.”[116]