Expedition of Arnold into Virginia.—Buccaneering Ravages.—Checked
by Steuben.—Arnold at Portsmouth.—Congress resolves to form
Heads of Departments.—Hamilton suggested by Sullivan for
Department of Finance.—High Opinion of him expressed by
Washington.—Misunderstanding between Hamilton and the
Commander-in-chief.
The armament with which Arnold boasted he was “to shake the continent,”
met with that boisterous weather which often rages along our coast in
the winter. His ships were tempest-tost and scattered, and half of his
cavalry horses and several of his guns had to be thrown overboard. It
was the close of the year when he anchored in the Chesapeake.
Virginia, at the time, was almost in a defenseless state. Baron Steuben,
who had the general command there, had recently detached such of his
regular troops as were clothed and equipped, to the South, to reinforce
General Greene. The remainder, five or six hundred in number, deficient
in clothing, blankets, and tents, were scarcely fit to take the field,
and the volunteers and militia lately encamped before Portsmouth, had
been disbanded. Governor Jefferson, on hearing of the arrival of the
fleet, called out the militia from the neighboring counties; but few
could be collected on the spur of the moment, for the whole country was
terror-stricken and in confusion. Having land and sea forces at his
command, Arnold opened the new year with a buccaneering ravage.
Ascending James River with some small vessels which he had captured, he
landed on the fourth of January with nine hundred men at Westover, about
twenty-five miles below Richmond, and pushed for the latter place, at
that time little more than a village, though the metropolis of Virginia.
Halting for the night within twelve miles of it, he advanced on the
following day with as much militia parade as possible, so as to strike
terror into a military patrol, which fled back to Richmond, reporting
that a British force, fifteen hundred strong, was at hand.
It was Arnold’s hope to capture the governor; but the latter, after
providing for the security of as much as possible of the public stores,
had left Richmond the evening before on horseback to join his family at
Tuckahoe, whence, on the following day, he conveyed them to a place of
safety. Governor Jefferson got back by noon to Manchester, on the
opposite side of James River, in time to see Arnold’s marauders march
into the town. Many of the inhabitants had fled to the country; some
stood terrified spectators on the hills; not more than two hundred men
were in arms for the defense of the place; these, after firing a few
volleys, retreated to Richmond and Shockoe Hills, whence they were
driven by the cavalry, and Arnold had possession of the capital. He sent
some of the citizens to the governor, offering to spare the town,
provided his ships might come up James River to be laden with tobacco
from the warehouses. His offer was indignantly rejected, whereupon fire
was set to the public edifices, stores, and workshops; private houses
were pillaged, and a great quantity of tobacco consumed.
While this was going on, Colonel Simcoe had been detached to Westham,
six miles up the river, where he destroyed a cannon foundry and sacked a
public magazine; broke off the trunnions of the cannon, and threw into
the river the powder which he could not carry away, and, after effecting
a complete devastation, rejoined Arnold at Richmond, which during the
ensuing night resounded with the drunken orgies of the soldiery.
Having completed his ravage at Richmond, Arnold reëmbarked at Westover
and fell slowly down the river, landing occasionally to burn, plunder,
and destroy; pursued by Steuben with a few continental troops and all
the militia that he could muster. General Nelson, also, with similar
levies opposed him. Lower down the river some skirmishing took place, a
few of Arnold’s troops were killed and a number wounded, but he made his
way to Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk, where he took post on the 20th of
January, and proceeded to fortify.
Steuben would have attempted to drive him from this position, but his
means were totally inadequate. Collecting from various parts of the
country all the force that could be mustered, he so disposed it at
different points as to hem the traitor in, prevent his making further
incursions, and drive him back to his intrenchments should he attempt
any.
Governor Jefferson returned to Richmond after the enemy had left it, and
wrote thence to the commander-in-chief an account of this ravaging
incursion of “the parricide Arnold.” It was mortifying to Washington to
see so inconsiderable a party committing such extensive depredations
with impunity, but it was his opinion that their principal object was to
make a diversion in favor of Cornwallis; and as the evils to be
apprehended from Arnold’s predatory incursions were not to be compared
with the injury to the common cause and the danger to Virginia in
particular, which would result from the conquest of the States to the
southward, he adjured Jefferson not to permit attention to immediate
safety so to engross his thoughts as to divert him from measures for
reinforcing the southern army.
About this time an important resolution was adopted in Congress.
Washington had repeatedly, in his communications to that body,
attributed much of the distresses and disasters of the war to the
congressional mode of conducting business through committees and
“boards” thus causing irregularity and delay, preventing secrecy and
augmenting expense. He was greatly rejoiced, therefore, when Congress
decided to appoint heads of departments; secretaries of foreign affairs,
of war and of marine, and a superintendent of finance. “I am happy,
thrice happy, on private as well as public account,” writes he, “to find
that these are in train. For it will ease my shoulders of an immense
burthen, which the deranged and perplexed situation of our affairs, and
the distresses of every department of the army, had placed upon them.”
General Sullivan, to whom this was written, and who was in Congress, was
a warm friend of Washington’s aide-de-camp, Colonel Hamilton, and he
sounded the commander-in-chief as to the qualifications of the colonel
to take charge of the department of finance. “I am unable to answer,”
replied Washington, “because I never entered upon a discussion with him,
but this I can venture to advance, from a thorough knowledge of him,
that there are few men to be found of his age, who have more general
knowledge than he possesses; and none whose soul is more firmly engaged
in the cause, or who exceeds him in probity and sterling virtue.”
This was a warm eulogium for one of Washington’s circumspect character,
but it was sincere. Hamilton had been four years in his military family,
and always treated by him with marked attention and regard. Indeed, it
had surprised many to see so young a man admitted like a veteran into
his counsels. It was but a few days after Washington had penned the
eulogium just quoted, when a scene took place between him and the man he
had praised so liberally, that caused him deep chagrin. We give it as
related by Hamilton himself, in a letter to General Schuyler, one of
whose daughters he had recently married.
“An unexpected change has taken place in my situation,” writes Hamilton
(February 18) “I am no longer a member of the general’s family. This
information will surprise you, and the manner of the change will
surprise you more. Two days ago the general and I passed each other on
the stairs: he told me he wanted to speak to me. I answered that I would
wait on him immediately. I went below and delivered Mr. Tilghman a
letter to be sent to the commissary, containing an order of a pressing
and interesting nature.
“Returning to the general, I was stopped on the way by the Marquis de
Lafayette, and we conversed together about a minute on a matter of
business. He can testify how impatient I was to get back, and that I
left him in a manner which, but for our intimacy, would have been more
than abrupt. Instead of finding the general, as is usual, in his room, I
met him at the head of the stairs, where, accosting me in an angry tone,
‘Colonel Hamilton (said he), you have kept me waiting at the head of the
stairs these ten minutes;—I must tell you, sir, you treat me with
disrespect.’ I replied, without petulancy, but with decision, ‘I am not
conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me
so, we part.’ ‘Very well, sir (said he), if it be your choice,’ or
something to this effect, and we separated. I sincerely believe my
absence, which gave so much umbrage, did not last two minutes.
“In less than an hour after, Tilghman came to me in the general’s name,
assuring me of his great confidence in my abilities, integrity,
usefulness, etc., and of his desire, in a candid conversation, to heal a
difference which could not have happened but in a moment of passion. I
requested Mr. Tilghman to tell him,—1st. That I had taken my resolution
in a manner not to be revoked. 2d. That as a conversation could serve no
other purpose than to produce explanations, mutually disagreeable,
though I certainly would not refuse an interview, if he desired it, yet
I would be happy, if he would permit me to decline it. 3d. That though
determined to leave the family, the same principles which had kept me so
long in it, would continue to direct my conduct towards him when out of
it. 4th. That, however, I did not wish to distress him, or the public
business, by quitting him before he could derive other assistance by the
return of some of the gentlemen who were absent. 5th. And that, in the
mean time, it depended on him to let our behavior to each other be the
same as if nothing had happened. He consented to decline the
conversation, and thanked me for my offer of continuing my aid in the
manner I had mentioned.
“I have given you so particular a detail of our difference, from the
desire I have to justify myself in your opinion. Perhaps you may think I
was precipitate in rejecting the overture made by the general to an
accommodation. I assume you, my dear sir, it was not the effect of
resentment; it was the deliberate result of maxims I had long formed for
the government of my own conduct.”
In considering this occurrence, as stated by Hamilton himself, we think
he was in the wrong. His hurrying past the general on the stairs without
pausing, although the latter expressed a wish to speak with him; his
giving no reason for his haste, which, however “pressing” the letter he
had to deliver, he could have spared at least a moment to do; his
tarrying below to talk with the Marquis de Lafayette, the general all
this time remaining at the head of the stairs, had certainly an air of
great disrespect, and we do not wonder that the commander-in-chief was
deeply offended at being so treated by his youthful aide-de-camp. His
expression of displeasure was measured and dignified, however irritated
he may have been, and such an explanation, at least, was due to him, as
Hamilton subsequently rendered to General Schuyler, through a desire to
justify himself in that gentleman’s opinion. The reply of Hamilton, on
the contrary, savored very much of petulance, however devoid he may have
considered it of that quality, and his avowed determination “to part,”
simply because taxed by the general with want of respect, was singularly
curt and abrupt.
Washington’s subsequent overture, intended to soothe the wounded
sensitiveness of Hamilton and soften the recent rebuke, by assurances of
unaltered confidence and esteem, strikes us as in the highest degree
noble and gracious, and furnishes another instance of that magnanimity
which governed his whole conduct. We trust that General Schuyler, in
reply to Hamilton’s appeal, intimated that he had indeed been
precipitate in rejecting such an overture.
The following passage in Hamilton’s letter to Schuyler, gives the real
key to his conduct on this occasion.
“I always disliked the office of an aide-de-camp, as having in it a kind
of personal dependence. I refused to serve in this capacity with two
major-generals, at an early period of the war. Infected, however, with
the enthusiasm of the times, an idea of the general’s character overcame
my scruples, and induced me to accept his invitation to enter into his
family.... It has been often with great difficulty that I have prevailed
on myself not to renounce it; but while, from motives of public utility,
I was doing violence to my feelings, I was always determined, if there
should ever happen a breach between us, never to consent to an
accommodation. I was persuaded that when once that nice barrier which
marked the boundaries of what we owed to each other should be thrown
down, it might be propped again, but could never be restored.”
Hamilton, in fact, had long been ambitious of an independent position,
and of some opportunity, as he said, “to raise his character above
mediocrity.” When an expedition by Lafayette against Staten Island had
been meditated in the autumn of 1780, he had applied to the
commander-in-chief, through the marquis, for the command of a battalion,
which was without a field officer. Washington had declined on the ground
that giving him a whole battalion might be a subject of dissatisfaction,
and that, should any accident happen to him in the actual state of
affairs at head-quarters, the commander-in-chief would be embarrassed
for want of his assistance.
He had next been desirous of the post of adjutant-general, which Colonel
Alexander Scammel was about to resign, and was recommended for that
office by Lafayette and Greene, but, before their recommendations
reached Washington, he had already sent in to Congress the name of
Brigadier-general Hand, who received the nomination.
These disappointments may have rendered Hamilton doubtful of his being
properly appreciated by the commander-in-chief; impaired his devotion to
him, and determined him, as he says, “if there should ever happen a
breach between them, never to consent to an accommodation.” It almost
looks as if, in his high-strung and sensitive mood, he had been on the
watch for an offense, and had grasped at the shadow of one.
Some short time after the rupture had taken place, Washington received a
letter from Lafayette, then absent in Virginia, in which the marquis
observes “Considering the footing I am upon with your Excellency, it
would, perhaps, appear strange to you, that I never mentioned a
circumstance which lately happened in your family. I was the first who
knew of it, and from that moment exerted every means in my power to
prevent a separation, which I knew was not agreeable to your Excellency.
To this measure I was prompted by affection to you; but I thought it was
improper to mention anything about it, until you were pleased to impart
it to me.”
The following was Washington’s reply: “The event, which you seem to
speak of with regret, my friendship for you would most assuredly have
induced me to impart to you the moment it happened, had it not been for
the request of Hamilton, who desired that no mention should be made of
it. Why this injunction on me, while he was communicating it himself, is
a little extraordinary. But I complied, and religiously fulfilled it.”
We are happy to add, that though a temporary coolness took place between
the commander-in-chief and his late favorite aide-de-camp, it was but
temporary. The friendship between these illustrious men was destined to
survive the Revolution, and to signalize itself through many eventful
years, and stands recorded in the correspondence of Washington almost at
the last moment of his life.[56]
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