The True George Washington Part 15

Another type of enemy, more or less the result of this differing with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Randolph, was sundry editors and writers who gathered under their patronage and received aids of money or of secret information. One who prospered for a time by abusing Washington was Philip Freneau. He was a college friend of Madison's, and was induced to undertake the task by his and Jefferson's urging, though the latter denied this later. As aid to the undertaking, Jefferson, then Secretary of State, gave Freneau an office, and thus produced the curious condition of a clerk in the government writing and printing savage attacks on the President.

Washington was much irritated at the abuse, and Jefferson in his "Anas"

said that he "was evidently sore & warm and I took his intention to be that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk to my office. But I will not do it."

According to the French minister, some of the worst of these articles were written by Jefferson himself, and Freneau is reported to have said, late in life, that many of them were written by the Secretary of State.

Far more indecent was the paper conducted by Benjamin Franklin Bache, who, early in the Presidency, applied for a place in the government, which for some reason not now known was refused. According to Cobbett, who hated him, "this ... scoundrel ... spent several years in hunting offices under the Federal Government, and being constantly rejected, he at last became its most bitter foe. Hence his abuse of General Washington, whom at the time he was soliciting a place he panegyrized up to the third heaven."

Certain it is that under his editorship the _General Advertiser_ and _Aurora_ took the lead in all criticisms of Washington, and not content with these opportunities for daily and weekly abuse, Bache (though the fact that they were forgeries was notorious) reprinted the "spurious letters which issued from a certain press in New York during the war, with a view to destroy the confidence which the army and community might have had in my political principles,--and which have lately been republished with greater avidity and perseverance than ever, by Mr. Bache to answer the same nefarious purpose with the latter," and Washington added that "immense pains has been taken by this said Mr. Bache, who is no more than the agent or tool of those who are endeavoring to destroy the confidence of the people, in the officers of Government (chosen by themselves) to disseminate these counterfeit letters." In addition Bache wrote a pamphlet, with the avowal that "the design of these remarks is to prove the want of claim in Mr. Washington either to the grat.i.tude or confidence of his country.... Our chief object ... is to _destroy undue impressions in favor of Mr. Washington_." Accordingly it charged that Washington was "treacherous," "mischievous," "inefficient;" dwelt upon his "farce of disinterestedness," his "stately journeyings through the American continent in search of personal incense," his "ostentatious professions of piety," his "pusillanimous neglect," his "little pa.s.sions," his "ingrat.i.tude," his "want of merit," his "insignificance," and his "spurious fame."

The successor of Bache as editor of these two journals, William Duane, came to the office with an equal hatred of Washington, having already written a savage pamphlet against him. In this the President was charged with "treacherous mazes of pa.s.sion," and with having "discharged the loathings of a sick mind." Furthermore it a.s.serted "that had you obtained promotion ... after Braddock's defeat, your sword would have been drawn against your country," that Washington "retained the barbarous usages of the feudal system and kept men in Livery," and that "posterity will in vain search for the monuments of wisdom in your administration;" the purpose of the pamphlet, by the author's own statement, being "to expose the _Personal Idolatry_ into which we have been heedlessly running," and to show the people the "fallibility of the most favored of men."

A fourth in this quartet of editors was the notorious James Thomson Callender, whose publications were numerous, as were also his impeachments against Washington. By his own account, this writer maintained, "Mr.

Washington has been twice a traitor," has "authorized the robbery and ruin of the remnants of his own army," has "broke the const.i.tution," and Callender fumes over "the vileness of the adulation which has been paid"

to him, claiming that "the extravagant popularity possessed by this citizen reflects the utmost ridicule on the discernment of America."

The bitterest attack, however, was penned by Thomas Paine. For many years there was good feeling between the two, and in 1782, when Paine was in financial distress, Washington used his influence to secure him a position "out of friendship for me," as Paine acknowledged. Furthermore, Washington tried to get the Virginia Legislature to pension Paine or give him a grant of land, an endeavor for which the latter was "exceedingly obliged." When Paine published his "Rights of Man" he dedicated it to Washington, with an inscription dwelling on his "exemplary virtue" and his "benevolence;"

while in the body of the work he a.s.serted that no monarch of Europe had a character to compare with Washington's, which was such as to "put all those men called kings to shame." Shortly after this, however, Washington refused to appoint him Postmaster-General; and still later, when Paine had involved himself with the French, the President, after consideration, decided that governmental interference was not proper. Enraged by these two acts, Paine published a pamphlet in which he charged Washington with "encouraging and swallowing the greatest adulation," with being "the patron of fraud," with a "mean and servile submission to the insults of one nation, treachery and ingrat.i.tude to another," with "falsehood,"

"ingrat.i.tude," and "pusillanimity;" and finally, after alleging that the General had not "served America with more disinterestedness or greater zeal, than myself, and I know not if with better effect," Paine closed his attack by the a.s.sertion, "and as to you, sir, _treacherous in private friendship_, and a _hypocrite_ in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide, whether you are an _apostate_ or an _impostor_; whether you have _abandoned good principles_, or whether _you ever had any?_"

Washington never, in any situation, took public notice of these attacks, and he wrote of a possible one, "I am gliding down the stream of life, and wish, as is natural, that my remaining days may be undisturbed and tranquil; and, conscious of my integrity, I would willingly hope, that nothing would occur tending to give me anxiety; but should anything present itself in this or any other publication, I shall never undertake the painful task of recrimination, nor do I know that I should even enter upon my justification." To a friend he said, "my temper leads me to peace and harmony with all men; and it is peculiarly my wish to avoid any feuds or dissentions with those who are embarked in the same great national interest with myself; as every difference of this kind must in its consequence be very injurious."

XI

SOLDIER

"My inclinations," wrote Washington at twenty-three, "are strongly bent to arms," and the tendency was a natural one, coming not merely from his Indian-fighting great-grandfather, but from his elder brother Lawrence, who had held a king's commission in the Carthagena expedition, and was one of the few officers who gained repute in that ill-fated attempt. At Mount Vernon George must have heard much of fighting as a lad, and when the ill health of Lawrence compelled resignation of command of the district militia, the younger brother succeeded to the adjutancy. This quickly led to the command of the first Virginia regiment when the French and Indian War was brewing. Twice Washington resigned in disgust during the course of the war, but each time his natural bent, or "glowing zeal," as he phrased it, drew him back into the service. The moment the news of Lexington reached Virginia he took the lead in organizing an armed force, and in the Virginia Convention of 1775, according to Lynch, he "made the most eloquent speech ... that ever was made. Says he, 'I will raise one thousand men, enlist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.'" At fifty-three, in speaking of war, Washington said, "my first wish is to see this plague to mankind banished from off the earth;" but during his whole life, when there was fighting to be done, he was among those who volunteered for the service.

The personal courage of the man was very great. Jefferson, indeed, said "he was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern." Before he had ever been in action, he noted of a certain position that it was "a charming field for an encounter," and his first engagement he described as follows: "I fortunately escaped without any wound, for the right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and received all the enemy's fire, and it was the part where the man was killed, and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." In his second battle, though he knew that he was "to be attacked and by unequal numbers," he promised beforehand to "withstand" them "if there are five to one," adding, "I doubt not, but if you hear I am beaten, but you will, at the same [time,]

hear that we have done our duty, in fighting as long [as] there was a possibility of hope," and in this he was as good as his word. When sickness detained him in the Braddock march, he halted only on condition that he should receive timely notice of when the fighting was to begin, and in that engagement he exposed himself so that "I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho'

death was levelling my companions on every side of me!" Not content with such an experience, in the second march on Fort Duquesne he "prayed" the interest of a friend to have his regiment part of the "light troops" that were to push forward in advance of the main army.

The same carelessness of personal danger was shown all through the Revolution. At the battle of Brooklyn, on New York Island, at Trenton, Germantown, and Monmouth, he exposed himself to the enemy's fire, and at the siege of Yorktown an eyewitness relates that "during the a.s.sault, the British kept up an incessant firing of cannon and musketry from their whole line. His Excellency General Washington, Generals Lincoln and Knox with their aids, having dismounted, were standing in an exposed situation waiting the result. Colonel Cobb, one of General Washington's aids, solicitous for his safety, said to his Excellency, 'Sir, you are too much exposed here, had you not better step back a little?' 'Colonel Cobb,'

replied his Excellency, 'if you are afraid, you have liberty to step back.'" It is no cause for wonder that an officer wrote, "our army love their General very much, but they have one thing against him, which is the little care he takes of himself in any action. His personal bravery, and the desire he has of animating his troops by example, make him fearless of danger. This occasions us much uneasiness."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WASHINGTON'S TRANSCRIPT OF THE RULES OF CIVILITY, CIRCA 1744]

This fearlessness was equally shown by his hatred and, indeed, non-comprehension of cowardice. In his first battle, upon the French surrendering, he wrote to the governor, "if the whole Detach't of the French behave with no more Resolution than this chosen Party did, I flatter myself we shall have no g't trouble in driving them to the d---."

At Braddock's defeat, though the regiment he had commanded "behaved like men and died like soldiers," he could hardly find words to express his contempt for the conduct of the British "cowardly regulars," writing of their "dastardly behavior" when they "broke and ran as sheep before hounds," and raging over being "most scandalously" and "shamefully beaten." When the British first landed on New York Island, and two New England brigades ran away from "a small party of the enemy," numbering about fifty, without firing a shot, he completely lost his self-control at their "dastardly behavior," and riding in among them, it is related, he laid his cane over the officers' backs, "d.a.m.ned them for cowardly rascals," and, drawing his sword, struck the soldiers right and left with the flat of it, while snapping his pistols at them. Greene states that the fugitives "left his Excellency on the ground within eighty yards of the enemy, so vexed at the infamous conduct of the troops, that he sought death rather than life," and Gordon adds that the General was only saved from his "hazardous position" by his aides, who "caught the bridle of his horse and gave him a different direction." At Monmouth an aide stated that when he met a man running away he was "exasperated ... and threatened the man ... he would have him whipped," and General Scott says that on finding Lee retreating, "he swore like an angel from heaven." Wherever in his letters he alludes to cowardice it is nearly always coupled with the adjectives "infamous," "scandalous," or others equally indicative of loss of temper.

There can be no doubt that Washington had a high temper. Hamilton's allusion to his not being remarkable for "good temper" has already been quoted, as has also Stuart's remark that "all his features were indicative of the strongest and most ungovernable pa.s.sions, and had he been born in the forests, he would have been the fiercest man among the savage tribes."

Again Stuart is quoted by his daughter as follows:

"While talking one day with General Lee, my father happened to remark that Washington had a tremendous temper, but held it under wonderful control.

General Lee breakfasted with the President and Mrs. Washington a few days afterwards.

"'I saw your portrait the other day,' said the General, 'but Stuart says you have a tremendous temper.'

"'Upon my word,' said Mrs. Washington, coloring, 'Mr. Stuart takes a great deal upon himself to make such a remark.'

"'But stay, my dear lady,' said General Lee, 'he added that the president had it under wonderful control.'

"With something like a smile, General Washington remarked, 'He is right.'"

Lear, too, mentions an outburst of temper when he heard of the defeat of St. Clair, and elsewhere records that in reading politics aloud to Washington "he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate, as I always did on such occasions." How he swore at Randolph and at Freneau is mentioned elsewhere. Jefferson is evidence that "his temper was naturally irritable and high-toned, but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If however it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath."

Strikingly at variance with these personal qualities of courage and hot blood is the "Fabian" policy for which he is so generally credited, and a study of his military career goes far to dispel the conception that Washington was the cautious commander that he is usually pictured.

In the first campaign, though near a vastly superior French force, Washington precipitated the conflict by attacking and capturing an advance party, though the delay of a few days would have brought him large reinforcements. As a consequence he was very quickly surrounded, and after a day's fighting was compelled to surrender. In what light his conduct was viewed at the time is shown in two letters, Dr. William Smith writing, "the British cause,... has received a fatal Blow by the entire defeat of Washington, whom I cannot but accuse of Foolhardiness to have ventured so near a vigilant enemy without being certain of their numbers, or waiting for Junction of some hundreds of our best Forces, who are within a few Days' March of him," and Ann Willing echoed this by saying, "the melancholy news has just arrived of the loss of sixty men belonging to Col. Washington's Company, who were killed on the spot, and of the Colonel and Half-King being taken prisoners, all owing to the obstinacy of Washington, who would not wait for the arrival of reinforcements."

Hardly less venturesome was he in the Braddock campaign, for "the General (before they met in council,) asked my opinion concerning the expedition.

I urged it, in the warmest terms I was able, to push forward, if we even did it with a small but chosen band, with such artillery and light stores as were absolutely necessary; leaving the heavy artillery, baggage, &c.

with the rear division of the army, to follow by slow and easy marches, which they might do safely, while we were advanced in front." How far the defeat of that force was due to the division thus urged it is not possible to say, but it undoubtedly made the French bolder and the English more subject to panic.

The same spirit was manifested in the Revolution. During the siege of Boston he wrote to Reed, "I proposed [an a.s.sault] in council; but behold, though we had been waiting all the year for this favorable event the enterprise was thought too dangerous. Perhaps it was; perhaps the irksomeness of my situation led me to undertake more than could be warranted by prudence. I did not think so, and I am sure yet, that the enterprise, if it had been undertaken with resolution, must have succeeded." He added that "the enclosed council of war:... being almost unanimous, I must suppose it to be right; although, from a thorough conviction of the necessity of attempting something against the ministerial troops before a reinforcement should arrive, and while we were favored with the ice, I was not only ready but willing, and desirous of making the a.s.sault," and a little later he said that had he but foreseen certain contingencies "all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston."

In the defence of New York there was no chance to attack, but even when our lines at Brooklyn had been broken and the best brigades in the army captured, Washington hurried troops across the river, and intended to contest the ground, ordering a retreat only when it was voted in the affirmative by a council of war. At Harlem plains he was the attacking party.

How with a handful of troops he turned the tide of defeat by attacking at Trenton and Princeton is too well known to need recital. At Germantown, too, though having but a few days before suffered defeat, he attacked and well-nigh won a brilliant victory, because the British officers did not dream that his vanquished army could possibly take the initiative. When the foe settled down into winter quarters in Philadelphia Laurens wrote, "our Commander-in-chief wishing ardently to gratify the public expectation by making an attack upon the enemy ... went yesterday to view the works."

On submitting the project to a council, however, they stood eleven to four against the attempt.

The most marked instance of Washington's un-Fabian preferences, and proof of the old saying that "councils of war never fight," is furnished in the occurrences connected with the battle of Monmouth. When the British began their retreat across New Jersey, according to Hamilton "the General unluckily called a council of war, the result of which would have done honor to the most honorable society of mid-wives and to them only. The purport was, that we should keep at a comfortable distance from the enemy, and keep up a vain parade of annoying them by detachment ... The General, on mature reconsideration of what had been resolved on, determined to pursue a different line of conduct at all hazards." Concerning this decision Pickering wrote,--

"His great caution in respect to the enemy, acquired him the name of the American Fabius. From this _governing_ policy he is said to have departed, when" at Monmouth he "indulged the most anxious desire to close with his antagonist in general action. Opposed to his wishes was the advice of his general officers. To this he for a time yielded; but as soon as he discovered that the enemy had reached Monmouth Court House, not more than twelve miles from the heights of Middletown, he determined that he should not escape without a blow."

Pickering considered this a "departure" from Washington's "usual practice and policy," and cites Wadsworth, who said, in reference to the battle of Monmouth, that the General appeared, on that occasion, "to act from the impulses of his own mind."

Thrice during the next three years plans for an attack on the enemy's lines at New York were matured, one of which had to be abandoned because the British had timely notice of it by the treachery of an American general, a second because the other generals disapproved the attempt, and, on the authority of Humphreys, "the accidental intervention of some vessels prevented [another] attempt, which was more than once resumed afterwards. Notwithstanding this favorite project was not ultimately effected, it was evidently not less bold in conception or feasible in accomplishment, than that attempted so successfully at Trenton, or than that which was brought to so glorious an issue in the successful siege of Yorktown."

As this _resume_ indicates, the most noticeable trait of Washington's military career was a tendency to surrender his own opinions and wishes to those over whom he had been placed, and this resulted in a general agreement not merely that he was disposed to avoid action, but that he lacked decision. Thus his own aide, Reed, in obvious contrast to Washington, praised Lee because "you have decision, a quality often wanted in minds otherwise valuable," continuing, "Oh! General, an indecisive mind is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall an army; how often have I lamented it this campaign," and Lee in reply alluded to "that fatal indecision of mind." Pickering relates meeting General Greene and saying to him, "'I had once conceived an exalted opinion of General Washington's military talents; but since I have been with the army, I have seen nothing to increase that opinion.' Greene answered, 'Why, the General does want decision: for my part, I decide in a moment.' I used the word 'increase,'

though I meant 'support,' but did not dare speak it." Wayne exclaimed "if our worthy general will but follow his own good judgment without listening too much to some counsel!" Edward Thornton, probably repeating the prevailing public estimate of the time rather than his own conclusion, said, "a certain degree of indecision, however, a want of vigor and energy, may be observed in some of his actions, and are indeed the obvious result of too refined caution."

Undoubtedly this leaning on others and the want of decision were not merely due to a const.i.tutional mistrust of his own ability, but also in a measure to real lack of knowledge. The French and Indian War, being almost wholly "bush-fighting," was not of a kind to teach strategic warfare, and in his speech accepting the command Washington requested that "it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with." Indeed, he very well described himself and his generals when he wrote of one officer, "his wants are common to us all--the want of experience to move upon a large scale, for the limited and contracted knowledge, which any of us have in military matters, stands in very little stead." There can be no question that in most of the "field" engagements of the Revolution Washington was out-generalled by the British, and Jefferson made a just distinction when he spoke of his having often "failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York."

The lack of great military genius in the commander-in-chief has led British writers to ascribe the results of the war to the want of ability in their own generals, their view being well summed up by a writer in 1778, who said, "in short, I am of the opinion ... that any other General in the world than General Howe would have beaten General Washington; and any other General in the world than General Washington would have beaten General Howe."

This is, in effect, to overlook the true nature of the contest, for it was their very victories that defeated the British. They conquered New Jersey, to meet defeat; they captured Philadelphia, only to find it a danger; they established posts in North Carolina, only to abandon them; they overran Virginia, to lay down their arms at Yorktown. As Washington early in the war divined, the Revolution was "a war of posts," and he urged the danger of "dividing and subdividing our Force too much [so that] we shall have no one post sufficiently guarded," saying, "it is a military observation strongly supported by experience, 'that a superior army may fall a sacrifice to an inferior, by an injudicious division.'" It was exactly this which defeated the British; every conquest they made weakened their force, and the war was not a third through when Washington said, "I am well convinced myself, that the enemy, long ere this, are perfectly well satisfied, that the possession of our towns, while we have an army in the field, will avail them little." As Franklin said, when the news was announced that Howe had captured Philadelphia, "No, Philadelphia has captured Howe."

The problem of the Revolution was not one of military strategy, but of keeping an army in existence, and it was in this that the commander-in-chief's great ability showed itself. The British could and did repeatedly beat the Continental army, but they could not beat the General, and so long as he was in the field there was a rallying ground for whatever fighting spirit there was.

The difficulty of this task can hardly be over-magnified. When Washington a.s.sumed command of the forces before Boston, he "found a mixed mult.i.tude of people ... under very little discipline, order, or government," and "confusion and disorder reigned in every department, which, in a little time, must have ended either in the separation of the army or fatal contests with one another." Before he was well in the saddle his general officers were quarrelling over rank, and resigning; there was such a scarcity of powder that it was out of the question for some months to do anything; and the British sent people infected with small-pox to the Continental army, with a consequent outbreak of that pest.