THE ALLIES
On May 4, 1778, Congress ratified the treaties 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
artillery 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 independence,
and it had been proved to the traditional 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 relaxation 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
constituted one of the principal glories of Marlborough. A similar
problem now confronted the American general.
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 common-place. 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 connection with the fact that
to coöperate 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 people, 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 elation or excitement, he began to consider
the possibility 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 happened 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 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
indiscreet proclamation to the troops by Sullivan, reflecting 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 business. Congress had the good sense to
suppress the protest of the officers, and Washington, disappointed,
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 concerned
will be apt to complain loudly. But prudence dictates that we should
put the best face upon the matter, and to the world attribute the
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. Permit 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 reasons, 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 republican 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 attending to the causes. The censures
which have been leveled at the French fleet would more than probably
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
displeased with everything that disappoints a favorite hope or
flattering project; and it is the folly of too many of them to condemn
without investigating circumstances." Finally he wrote to D'Estaing,
deploring the difference which had arisen, mentioning his own efforts
and wishes to restore harmony, and said: "It is in the trying
circumstances 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 character 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 reflecting 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
comprehension of human nature, by judicious suppression and equally
judicious letters, Washington, 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, wrote, intimating that
D'Estaing was about to return, and asking what we would do. Washington
replied at length, professing his willingness to coöperate in any way,
and offering, if the French would send ships, to abandon everything,
run all risks, and make an attack on New York. Nothing further came
of it, and Washington heard that the fleet had gone to the Southern
States, which he learned without regret, as he was apprehensive 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 wonderful 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 perfectly 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 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 produced by D'Estaing's
arrival, Washington took occasion to draw once more the distinction
between a valuable alliance and volunteer adventurers, and to
remonstrate again with Congress about their reckless profusion in
dealing with foreign officers. To Gouverneur Morris he wrote 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 pouring them in upon us like a torrent and
adding to our present burden. But it is neither the expense 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 command 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 Lafayette,
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 explicitly to observe to Congress that his
desire of having an actual and permanent command in the line 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 deference 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 confuse 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 Washington'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. 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 superiority anywhere. Hamilton was
national throughout, but he was born outside the thirteen colonies,
and knew his fellow-citizens only as Americans. Franklin was national
by the force of his 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 American, 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 struggle 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 Trenton, 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 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
feeling 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 laudable 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
life-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 opposition
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 Lafayette, and
penetrated no farther than Albany. 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 Franklin, to communicate to the French court, but
Washington, 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 utter
impracticability, and with this official letter, which was necessarily
confined to the military side of the question, went another addressed
to President 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, Canada on our left, and seconded by the
numerous 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 disposed
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 coming into being, and from that firm
point he watched and reasoned. His words had no effect on Congress,
but as it turned out, the plan failed through adverse influences in
the quarter where Washington 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 general, that the opportunity had come to revive her old
American policy and reestablish her colonies under the most favorable
conditions. The ministers of Louis XVI., moreover, did not wish the
colonies to conquer Canada, and the plan of Lafayette 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
encouraging. Soon after Washington had defeated 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 perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, 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 acknowledge 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 exceptions, had departed. Some had gone to the
army, some to the diplomatic service, and many had remained at home,
preferring the honors and offices of the States to those of the
Confederation. Their successors, patriotic and well-meaning though
they 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 irredeemable paper by the Confederation and the
States had brought their finances to the verge of absolute ruin. The
continental currency had fallen to something like forty to one in
gold, and the decline 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 markets. 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. These object lessons had some result, and
by foreign 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 Harrison he
wrote: "It appears to me as clear as ever the sun did in its meridian
brightness, that America 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
endeavor to make the States and the people understand the dangers
which he realized, but which they either could not or would not
appreciate.
On the other hand, while his anxiety was sharpened to the highest
point by the character of Congress, his sternest wrath was kindled by
the gambling and money-making which had become rampant. 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 disposed to second
your endeavors in bringing those murderers of our cause, the
monopolizers, forestallers, 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 prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is
too great for the man who can build his greatness 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 August. 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 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, dissipation,
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 himself doggedly to fight it, as he
always fought every enemy, using both speech and pen in all quarters.
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, "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: "Nothing, I am convinced, but
the depreciation of our currency, aided by stock-jobbing and party
dissensions, 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
common country, America, possess virtue enough to disappoint them? Is
the paltry consideration of a little pelf to individuals to be placed
in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present
generation, and of millions yet unborn? Shall a few designing men, for
their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset
the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the expense 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 enforcing efficacious laws for
checking the growth of these monstrous evils, and restoring matters,
in some degree, to the state they were in at the commencement of the
war."
"Our cause is noble. It is the cause of mankind, 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 are aiming to continue us in them; while we
should be striving to fill our battalions, and devising ways and means
to raise the value of the currency, 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 hostilities that I have thought her
liberties in such imminent 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 spectacle of widespread popular demoralization,
of selfish scrambles for plunder, and of feeble administration 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 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 prospect 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 growing 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 concentrated and better organized administration
of public 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, Washington'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 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
department, and as Washington inclined to the same belief, the fear of
this event gave him many anxious 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 opponents 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 undertake. 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 raid, and then all was
peaceful again, and Washington 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 of undertaking anything on a large scale, and
announced his intention of remaining on the defensive. It was a trying
policy to a man of his temper, 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
independence. He tried to get Congress to do something with the navy,
and he planned an expedition, under 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 permanent 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
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 struggle 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
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 trouble 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 uneventful. 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, fortifying, 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 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 success, 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 reducing them to quiet, thus taking away another
annoyance 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 marauding
expeditions and cut off outlying parties. Tryon burned and pillaged
in Connecticut, Matthews 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 bayoneted 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 back and study the exploits of Tryon, and it
is not amiss in the same connection to recall that English 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
England, 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 strenuous
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 disasters was beginning, and Clinton had
practically given up everything except New York. The war had taken
on the new phase expected by Washington. 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.