MOUNT VERNON IN DANGER—MRS. WASHINGTON INVITED TO THE CAMP—LUND
WASHINGTON, THE GENERAL’S AGENT—TERMS ON WHICH HE SERVES—INSTRUCTED TO
KEEP UP THE HOSPITALITY OF THE HOUSE—JOURNEY OF MRS. WASHINGTON TO
CAMP—HER EQUIPAGE AND LIVERIES—ARRIVAL AT CAMP—DOMESTIC AFFAIRS AT
HEAD-QUARTERS—GAYETIES IN CAMP—A BRAWL BETWEEN ROUND JACKETS AND RIFLE
SHIRTS.
Amid the various concerns of the war, and the multiplied perplexities of
the camp, the thoughts of Washington continually reverted to his home on
the banks of the Potomac. A constant correspondence was kept up between
him and his agent, Mr. Lund Washington, who had charge of his various
estates. The general gave clear and minute directions as to their
management, and the agent rendered as clear and minute returns of every
thing that had been done in consequence.
According to recent accounts, Mount Vernon had been considered in
danger. Lord Dunmore was exercising martial law in the Ancient Dominion,
and it was feared that the favorite abode of the “rebel
commander-in-chief” would be marked out for hostility, and that the
enemy might land from their ships in the Potomac, and lay it waste.
Washington’s brother, John Augustine, had entreated Mrs. Washington to
leave it. The people of Loudoun had advised her to seek refuge beyond
the Blue Ridge, and had offered to send a guard to escort her. She had
declined the offer, not considering herself in danger. Lund Washington
was equally free from apprehensions on the subject. “Lord Dunmore,”
writes he, “will hardly himself venture up this river, nor do I believe
he will send on that errand. You may depend I will be watchful, and upon
the least alarm persuade her to move.”
Though alive to every thing concerning Mount Vernon, Washington agreed
with them in deeming it in no present danger of molestation by the
enemy. Still he felt for the loneliness of Mrs. Washington’s situation,
heightened as it must be by anxiety on his own account. On taking
command of the army, he had held out a prospect to her, that he would
rejoin her at home in the autumn; there was now a probability of his
being detained before Boston all winter. He wrote to her, therefore, by
express, in November, inviting her to join him at the camp. He at the
same time wrote to Lund Washington, engaging his continued services as
an agent. This person, though bearing the same name, and probably of the
same stock, does not appear to have been in any near degree of
relationship. Washington’s letter to him gives a picture of his domestic
policy.
“I will engage for the year coming, and the year following, if these
troubles and my absence continue, that your wages shall be standing and
certain at the highest amount that any one year’s crop has produced you
yet. I do not offer this as any temptation to induce you to go on more
cheerfully in prosecuting those schemes of mine. I should do injustice
to you were I not to acknowledge, that your conduct has ever appeared to
me above every thing sordid; but I offer it in consideration of the
great charge you have upon your hands, and my entire dependence upon
your fidelity and industry.
“It is the greatest, indeed it is the only comfortable reflection I
enjoy on this score, that my business is in the hands of a person
concerning whose integrity I have not a doubt, and on whose care I can
rely. Were it not for this, I should feel very unhappy on account of the
situation of my affairs. But I am persuaded you will do for me as you
would for yourself.”
The following were his noble directions concerning Mount Vernon.
“Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up.
Let no one go hungry away. If any of this kind of people should be in
want of corn, supply their necessaries, provided it does not encourage
them to idleness; and I have no objection to your giving my money in
charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a year, when you think it
well bestowed. What I mean by having no objection is, that it is my
desire it should be done. You are to consider that neither myself nor
wife, is now in the way to do those good offices.”
Mrs. Washington came on with her own carriage and horses, accompanied by
her son, Mr. Custis, and his wife. She travelled by very easy stages,
partly on account of the badness of the roads, partly out of regard to
the horses, of which Washington was always very careful, and which were
generally remarkable for beauty and excellence. Escorts and guards of
honor attended her from place to place, and she was detained some time
at Philadelphia, by the devoted attention of the inhabitants.
Her arrival at Cambridge was a glad event in the army. Incidental
mention is made of the equipage in which she appeared there. A chariot
and four, with black postilions in scarlet and white liveries. It has
been suggested that this was an English style of equipage, derived from
the Fairfaxes; but in truth it was a style still prevalent at that day
in Virginia.
It would appear that dinner invitations to head-quarters, were becoming
matters of pride and solicitude. “I am much obliged to you,” writes
Washington to Reed, “for the hints respecting the jealousies which you
say are gone abroad. I cannot charge myself with incivility, or what in
my opinion is tantamount, ceremonious civility to gentlemen of this
colony; but if such my conduct appears, I will endeavor at a
reformation; as I can assure you, my dear Reed, that I wish to walk in
such a line as will give most general satisfaction. You know that it was
my wish at first to invite a certain number to dinner, but
unintentionally we somehow or other missed of it. If this has given rise
to the jealousy, I can only say that I am very sorry for it; at the same
time I add, that it was rather owing to inattention, or more properly,
too much attention to other matters, which caused me to neglect it.”
And in another letter:
“My constant attention to the great and perplexing objects which
continually arise to my view, absorbs all lesser considerations; and,
indeed, scarcely allows me to reflect that there is such a body as the
General Court of this colony, but when I am reminded of it by a
committee; nor can I, upon recollection, discover in what instance I
have been inattentive to, or slighted them. They could not surely
conceive that there was a propriety in unbosoming the secrets of the
army to them; that it was necessary to ask their opinion in throwing up
an intrenchment or forming a battalion. It must be, therefore, what I
before hinted to you; and how to remedy it I hardly know, as I am
acquainted with few of the members, never go out of my own lines, nor
see any of them in them.”
The presence of Mrs. Washington soon relieved the general from this kind
of perplexity. She presided at head-quarters with mingled dignity and
affability. We have an anecdote or two of the internal affairs of
head-quarters, furnished by the descendant of one who was an occasional
inmate there.
Washington had prayers morning and evening, and was regular in his
attendance at the church in which he was a communicant. On one occasion,
for want of a clergyman, the Episcopal service was read by Colonel
William Palfrey, one of Washington’s aides-de-camp; who substituted a
prayer of his own composition in place of the one formerly offered up
for the king.
Not long after her arrival in camp, Mrs. Washington claimed to keep
twelfth-night in due style, as the anniversary of her wedding. “The
general,” says the same informant, “was somewhat thoughtful, and said he
was afraid he must refuse it.” His objections were overcome, and
twelfth-night and the wedding anniversary were duly celebrated.
There seems to have been more conviviality at the quarters of some of
the other generals; their time and minds were less intensely engrossed
by anxious cares, having only their individual departments to attend to.
Adjutant-general Mifflin’s house appears to have been a gay one. “He was
a man of education, ready apprehension and brilliancy,” says Graydon;
“had spent some time in Europe, particularly in France, and was very
easy of access, with the manners of genteel life, though occasionally
evolving those of the Quaker.”[33]
Mrs. Adams gives an account of an evening party at his house. “I was
very politely entertained and noticed by the generals,” writes she,
“more especially General Lee, who was very urgent for me to tarry in
town, and dine with him and the ladies present at Hobgoblin Hall; but I
excused myself. The general was determined that I should not only be
acquainted with him, but with his companions too; and therefore placed a
chair before me, into which he ordered Mr. Spada (his dog) to mount, and
present his paw to me for a better acquaintance. I could not do
otherwise than accept it.”[34]
John Adams, likewise, gives us a picture of festivities at
head-quarters, where he was a visitant on the recess of Congress.
“I dined at Col. Mifflin’s with the general (Washington) and lady, and a
vast collection of other company, among whom were six or seven sachems
and warriors of the French Caughnawaga Indians, with their wives and
children. A savage feast they made of it; yet were very polite in the
Indian style. I was introduced to them by the general as one of the
grand council at Philadelphia, which made them prick up their ears. They
came and shook hands with me.”[35]
While giving these familiar scenes and occurrences at the camp, we are
tempted to subjoin one furnished from the manuscript memoir of an eye
witness. A large party of Virginia riflemen, who had recently arrived in
camp, were strolling about Cambridge, and viewing the collegiate
buildings, now turned into barracks. Their half-Indian equipments, and
fringed and ruffled hunting garbs, provoked the merriment of some troops
from Marblehead, chiefly fishermen and sailors, who thought nothing
equal to the round jacket and trowsers. A bantering ensued between them.
There was snow upon the ground, and snowballs began to fly when jokes
were wanting. The parties waxed warm with the contest. They closed, and
came to blows both sides were reinforced, and in a little while at least
a thousand were at fisticuffs, and there was a tumult in the camp worthy
of the days of Homer. “At this juncture,” writes our informant,
“Washington made his appearance, whether by accident or design, I never
knew. I saw none of his aides with him; his black servant just behind
him mounted. He threw the bridle of his own horse into his servant’s
hands, sprang from his seat, rushed into the thickest of the melée,
seized two tall brawny riflemen by the throat, keeping them at
arm’s-length, talking to and shaking them.”
As they were from his own province, he may have felt peculiarly
responsible for their good conduct; they were engaged, too, in one of
those sectional brawls which were his especial abhorrence; his reprimand
must, therefore, have been a vehement one. He was commanding in his
serenest moments, but irresistible in his bursts of indignation. On the
present occasion, we are told, his appearance and strong-handed rebuke
put an instant end to the tumult. The combatants dispersed in all
directions, and in less than three minutes none remained on the ground
but the two he had collared.
The veteran who records this exercise of military authority, seems at a
loss which most to admire, the simplicity of the process or the vigor
with which it was administered. “Here,” writes he, “bloodshed,
imprisonments, trials by court-martial, revengeful feelings between the
different corps of the army, were happily prevented by the physical and
mental energies of a single person, and the only damage resulting from
the fierce encounter was, a few torn hunting frocks and round
jackets.”[36]