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 forests,
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 what was coming. So they made their journey to the North, and
on the memorable 5th of September 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 the Virginia convention, and that had
proceeded along the path marked out in the Fairfax resolves, so that
Washington could not be other than content. 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
unquestionably 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
posterity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which, by the by, is
impossible) accompanies it, execrations upon all those who have been
instrumental in the execution." This was rather uncompromising talk
and not over peaceable, it must be 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
independence; 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 remembrance 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 separation
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 success when the time came for him to put
his hand to the plough.
When Congress adjourned, Washington returned 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
fortune 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, whimsical, 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.
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 debating 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 confederation was formed at
the same time, and Congress proceeded to exercise the sovereign powers
thus vested in them. The most pressing and troublesome 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, working hard as chairman of the military
committees, planning for defense, and arranging for raising an 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 waiting, 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 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 truthfulness 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 Washington 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 coming; he would fain have
avoided the great task, but no thought of shrinking crossed his mind.
He saw with his entire freedom from constitutional subtleties that an
absolute parliament sought to extend its power to the colonies. To
this he 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,
dignified, 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 affairs in that colony,
having mastered on the journey its complicated social and political
conditions. 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 confidence. Lingering less
than an hour for this ceremony, he rode on to the headquarters at
Cambridge, 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,--
'Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
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
churchman, 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
dissenters 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 common 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 New England
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 and symbol of a certain solemn
league and covenant 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 ability had come, and he
faced it quietly as the excitement caused by his arrival passed by. He
saw before him, to use his own words, "a mixed multitude of people,
under very little discipline, order, or government." In the language
of one of his aides:[1] "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 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 thousand, as had been represented, but fourteen
thousand 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 morally
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
overturning in the camp as to order and regularity; new lords, new
laws. The Generals Washington and Lee are upon the lines every day.
The strictest government is taking place, and great distinction 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 intrenchments. It is little wonder
that the worthy chaplain 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.
[Footnote 1: John Trumbull, _Reminiscences_, p. 18.]
Then too there was no discipline, for the army was composed of raw
militia, who elected their 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.
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
commissary 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 commerce, 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, it was suddenly discovered that there was no gunpowder.
An undrilled army, imperfectly organized, was facing a disciplined
force and had only some nine rounds in the cartridge-boxes. Yet there
is no quivering in the letters from headquarters. Anxiety and strain
of nerve are apparent; but a resolute determination rises over all,
supported 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 movement 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 monosyllable
for the new general of freshly revolted colonies. 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 Montgomery, to Montreal, and
gave Arnold picked troops to march through the wilds of Maine and
strike Quebec. The scheme was bold and brilliant, 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 unavoidable, 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 Canadian 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 Roxbury, 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 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
Washington became ready enough afterwards to override 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 current of details, difficult, vital, absolute in
demanding prompt and vigorous solution, went on too. The existence of
war made it necessary to fix our relations with our enemies, and that
these relations 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 fortune of war have fallen into your hands,
have been thrown indiscriminately into a common gaol appropriated
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 unworthy 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 principles, I
conceive, are foreign to this point. The 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 unhappy 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 custody.
"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 this letter and fail to
perceive that here was dignity 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 inconsiderable 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 letter 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 because 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 continued: "You advise me to give free operation to truth, and
to punish misrepresentation and falsehood. If experience stamps value
upon counsel, yours must have a weight which few can claim. You best
can tell how far the convulsion, which has brought such ruin on both
countries, and shaken the mighty empire of Britain to its foundation,
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 fountain 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 general 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 Washington 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 responsibility 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 in military behavior and general
good manners, but there was nothing save infinite vexation in dealing
with the difficulties arising on the American 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 officers would disappear to their
farms, which Washington, always impatient of wrongdoing, styled "base
and pernicious conduct," and punished accordingly. 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
strengthened and ammunition secured.
Among these reinforcements came some Virginia riflemen, and it must
have warmed Washington'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
fishermen. The quarrel was at its height, when suddenly into the brawl
rode the commander-in-chief. He quickly dismounted, seized two of the
combatants, 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
governor 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
passionate.
Another trial was brought about by his securing and sending out
privateers which did good service. They brought in many valuable
prizes which caused infinite trouble, and forced Washington not only
to be a naval secretary, but also made him a species of admiralty
judge. He implored 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 personal jealousies, and
the privateers and their prizes, he had to meet also the greed and
selfishness as well of the money-making, stock-jobbing spirit which
springs up rankly under the influence 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 departing from
that great line of duty which, though hid under a cloud for some
time, from a peculiarity 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 work about him. Henry
Knox, sent out for that purpose, returned safely with the guns
captured at Ticonderoga, and thus heavy ordnance and gunpowder were
obtained. By the middle of February 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 distracted 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 superficial, but the virtues, the tenacity, and
the courage 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
running hither and thither in the town. Still the men on the heights
worked on, and still Washington 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 anniversary 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 untenable 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 withdraw. Still they hesitated and delayed, until Washington
again advanced his works, and on this hint they started in earnest, on
March 17, amid confusion, pillage, and disorder, leaving cannon 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
attempted." 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 numbers, always slight and often
more imaginary than real. They had twelve thousand men, experienced,
disciplined, equipped, and thoroughly supplied. 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 extended
posts. Washington caught them with an iron grip and tightened it
steadily until, in disorderly haste, they took to their boats without
even striking a blow. Washington's great abilities, and the incapacity
of the generals opposed to 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 stupidity 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 accepted 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 commanders of her American army a parcel of
ministerial 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 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 possession of his mind, and undoubtedly
influenced profoundly his future course. One was the conviction 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
destruction 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 civilized
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 permanency 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 characterized 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 strength 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.