George Washington, Volume I

Meanwhile, Washington waited and watched, puzzled by the delay, and hoping only to harass Sir Henry with militia on the march to New York. But as the days slipped by, the Americans grew stronger, while the British had been weakened by wholesale desertions. When he finally started, he had with him probably sixteen to seventeen thousand men, while the Americans had apparently at least thirteen thousand, nearly all continental troops.16 Under these circumstances, Washington determined to bring on a battle. He was thwarted at the outset by his officers, as was wont to be the case. Lee had returned more whimsical than ever, and at the moment was strongly adverse to an attack, and was full of wise saws about building a bridge of gold for the flying enemy. The ascendancy which, as an English officer, he still retained enabled him to get a certain following, and the councils of war which were held compared unfavorably, as Hamilton put it, with the deliberations of midwives. Washington was harassed of course by all this, but he did not stay his purpose, and as soon as he knew that Clinton actually had marched, he broke camp at Valley Forge and started in pursuit. There were more councils of an old-womanish character, but finally Washington took the matter into his own hands, and ordered forth a strong detachment to attack the British rear-guard. They set out on the 25th, and as Lee, to whom the command belonged, did not care to go, Lafayette was put in charge. As soon as Lafayette had departed, however, Lee changed his mind, and insisted that all the detachments in front, amounting to five thousand men, formed a division so large that it was unjust not to give him the command. Washington, therefore, sent him forward next day with two additional brigades, and then Lee by seniority took command on the 27th of the entire advance.

In the evening of that day, Washington came up, reconnoitred the enemy, and saw that, although their position was a strong one, another day's unmolested march would make it still stronger. He therefore resolved to attack the next morning, and gave Lee then and there explicit orders to that effect. In the early dawn he dispatched similar orders, but Lee apparently did nothing except move feebly forward, saying to Lafayette, "You don't know the British soldiers; we cannot stand against them." He made a weak attempt to cut off a covering party, marched and countermarched, ordered and countermanded, until Lafayette and Wayne, eager to fight, knew not what to do, and sent hot messages to Washington to come to them.

Thus hesitating and confused, Lee permitted Clinton to get his baggage and train to the front, and to mass all his best troops in the rear under Cornwallis, who then advanced against the American lines. Now there were no orders at all, and the troops did not know what to do, or where to go. They stood still, then began to fall back, and then to retreat. A very little more and there would have been a rout. As it was, Washington alone prevented disaster. His early reports from the front from Dickinson's outlying party, and from Lee himself, were all favorable. Then he heard the firing, and putting the main army in motion, he rode rapidly forward. First he encountered a straggler, who talked of defeat. He could not believe it, and the fellow was pushed aside and silenced. Then came another and another, all with songs of death. Finally, officers and regiments began to come. No one knew why they fled, or what had happened. As the ill tidings grew thicker, Washington spurred sharper and rode faster through the deep sand, and under the blazing midsummer sun. At last he met Lee and the main body all in full retreat. He rode straight at Lee, savage with anger, not pleasant to look at, one may guess, and asked fiercely and with a deep oath, tradition says, what it all meant. Lee was no coward, and did not usually lack for words. He was, too, a hardened man of the world, and, in the phrase of that day, impudent to boot. But then and there he stammered and hesitated. The fierce question was repeated. Lee gathered himself and tried to excuse and palliate what had happened, but although the brief words that followed are variously reported to us across the century, we know that Washington rebuked him in such a way, and with such passion, that all was over between them. Lee had committed the one unpardonable sin in the eyes of his commander. He had failed to fight when the enemy was upon him. He had disobeyed orders and retreated. It was the end of him. He went to the rear, thence to a court-martial, thence to dismissal and to a solitary life with a well-founded suspicion of treason hanging about him. He was an intelligent, quick-witted, unstable man, much overrated because he was an English officer among a colonial people. He was ever treated magnanimously by Washington after the day of battle at Monmouth, but he then disappeared from the latter's life.

When Lee bowed before the storm and stepped aside, Washington was left to deal with the danger and confusion around him. Thus did he tell the story afterwards to his brother: "A retreat, however, was the fact, be the causes what they may; and the disorder arising from it would have proved fatal to the army, had not that bountiful Providence, which has never failed us in the hour of distress, enabled me to form a regiment or two (of those that were retreating) in the face of the enemy, and under their fire; by which means a stand was made long enough (the place through which the enemy were pressing being narrow) to form the troops, that were advancing, upon an advantageous piece of ground in the rear." We cannot add much to these simple and modest words, for they tell the whole story. Having put Lee aside, Washington rallied the broken troops, brought them into position, turned them back, and held the enemy in check. It was not an easy feat, but it was done, and when Lee's division again fell back in good order the main army was in position, and the action became general. The British were repulsed, and then Washington, taking the offensive, drove them back until he occupied the battlefield of the morning. Night came upon him still advancing. He halted his army, lay down under a tree, his soldiers lying on their arms about him, and planned a fresh attack, to be made at daylight. But when the dawn came it was seen that the British had crept off, and were far on their road. The heat prevented a rapid pursuit, and Clinton got into New York. Between there and Philadelphia he had lost at least two thousand men by desertions in addition to nearly five hundred who fell at Monmouth.

It is worth while to pause a moment and compare this battle with the rout of Long Island, the surprise at the Brandywine, and the fatal unsteadiness at Germantown. Here, too, a check was received at the outset, owing to blundering which no one could have foreseen. The troops, confused and without orders, began to retreat, but without panic or disorder. The moment Washington appeared they rallied, returned to the field, showed perfect steadiness, and the victory was won. Monmouth has never been one of the famous battles of the Revolution, and yet there is no other which can compare with it as an illustration of Washington's ability as a soldier. It was not so much the way in which it was fought, although that was fine enough, that its importance lies as in the evidence which it gives of the way in which Washington, after a series of defeats, during a winter of terrible suffering and privation, had yet developed his ragged volunteers into a well-disciplined and effective army. The battle was a victory, but the existence and the quality of the army that won it were a far greater triumph.

The dreary winter at Valley Forge had indeed borne fruit. With a slight numerical superiority Washington had fought the British in the open field, and fairly defeated them. "Clinton gained no advantage," said the great Frederic, "except to reach New York with the wreck of his army; America is probably lost for England." Another year had passed, and England had lost an army, and still held what she had before, the city of New York. Washington was in the field with a better army than ever, and an army flushed with a victory which had been achieved after difficulties and trials such as no one now can rightly picture or describe. The American Revolution was advancing, held firm by the master-hand of its leader. Into it, during these days of struggle and of battle, a new element had come, and the next step is to see how Washington dealt with the fresh conditions upon which the great conflict had entered.

CHAPTER VIII

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.