“Is not the same subject held up for your discussion, and has it not passed the seal of office, and taken all the solemnity of an order—this will give system to your proceedings, and stability to your resolves, will ripen speculation into fact, and while it adds to the unanimity, it cannot possibly lessen the independency of your sentiments.”
The writer then explained the anonymity of his three letters, saying his name was not necessary since his views reflected the feeling of the entire army. However, he closed with a threat to reveal his identity if it would be “necessary . . . to hold up any individual among you as an object of the resentment or contempt of the rest.”
This, I thought, was clearly an attempt to intimidate any officers who might dare to speak against his call for action at the Saturday meeting. Was this a message to the General to join the mutiny or be denounced in front of his officers? I thanked the New Hampshire colonel, put the letter in my pocket to show the General that afternoon, and, covering up my consternation as best as I could, tried to continue my rounds.
Back at headquarters before the afternoon dinner, I showed the latest letter to the General. He grunted and, after reading it, put it on his desk with the others. Otherwise he showed no emotion. After motioning to me to sit opposite him in my usual perch, the wooden straight-backed chair, the General asked what I had learned on my morning visits. I told him that Major Armstrong was the probable author and that there seemed to be a yearning among many of the troops that the General lead the mutiny. He showed no surprise and simply thanked me.
“Well done, Josiah.” Then, after a pause, he muttered, “Well, the Old Leaven”—our nickname for General Gates—“is again beginning to work under a mask of the most perfect dissimulation and apparent cordiality.”
I was relieved that the General had finally accepted that General Gates and officers inside the camp were pushing the insurrection. Still, if the General believed this and disapproved, why did he not order General Gates and Major Armstrong to our headquarters and ask for an explanation, or even arrest them for sedition? Of course, such arrests would portray the army as divided to the outside world and the Congress, which I knew went against the General’s desire to portray the army as having one voice.
I waited for any further orders, expecting that he would at least ask me to summon General Gates or Major Armstrong. Instead he simply stated, “I want a letter drafted to Congressman Jones.”
Joseph Jones was a Virginia congressman whom the General had learned to trust and who the General knew would pass on his thoughts to many of his congressional colleagues. The General asked me to include copies of the three anonymous letters and his order postponing the meeting. Then he dictated the letter to me, a lengthy one.
I remember writing—and have confirmed from looking at my notes—how the “temper of the Army” was “very irritable on account of their long protracted sufferings.” I then conveyed the General’s suspicions about the propagation of schemes in Philadelphia linked to “dangerous combinations . . . forming in the Army” and that since the return of a certain gentleman from Philadelphia, sentiments had been circulating in the camp that “the Army would not disband until they had obtained justice.” The General was referring to Colonel Stewart, cousin Benjamin’s commander. The General, however, as I well knew, had an aversion to making direct accusations. Perhaps he was just following Rule 89 in his Rules of Civility: “Speak not evil of those who are absent for it is unjust.”
The General then referred succinctly to his order delaying the meeting, stating that “I did this on the principle that it is easier to divert from a wrong to a right path, than it is to recall the hasty and fatal steps which have already been taken.”
I remember thinking that the General may not have been a writer on a par with some of his compatriots, but he had no trouble expressing himself with deft phases.
Toward the end of the letter the General seemed to be portraying himself as all that stood between the Congress and mutiny. “It is commonly supposed, if the Officers had met agreeably to the anonymous summons, resolutions might have been formed, the consequences of which may be more easily conceived than expressed. Now they will have leisure to view the matter more calmly and seriously. It is hoped they will be induced to adopt more rational measures, and wait a while longer for the settlement of their accounts.”
Then the General returned to the justness of the army’s cause and his displeasure with Congress. “There is no man . . . who will not acknowledge that Congress have the means of paying . . . Are we to be disbanded and sent home without this?” The General went on to lay out the army’s fear that Congress would continue to stall until peace and the disbanding of the army had occurred and then do nothing. The General asked that I close the letter with what could be considered a warning or a threat:
Let me entreat you therefore, my good Sir, to push this matter to an issue—and if there are delegates among you, who are really opposed to doing justice to the Army, scruple not to tell them—if matters do come to extremity—that they must be answerable for all the ineffable horrors which may be occasioned thereby. With great truth and sincerity I am—Dear Sir Your Most Obedient and affectionate servant,
George Washington
What was the General intending? He was clearly informing Congress of the threat of mutiny. He was conveying suspicion of congressional involvement and implicitly warning Congress not to meddle with the army. He was asserting the justice of the army’s demands. He was portraying himself as loyal to the Congress and trying to avoid the mutiny. Finally, he was warning that Congress better act if it did not want to suffer terrible consequences and perhaps dropping just the slightest hint that he, George Washington, would not protect the Congress from those consequences.
There were many themes indeed, and I could not puzzle them all out. But no sooner had I finished taking his dictation of the letter to Congressman Jones than the General was dictating a letter to Congressman Alexander Hamilton. “Include copies of all three anonymous letters and my order postponing the meeting with this letter too, Josiah.” He said to tell Hamilton that “it is firmly believed by some that the scheme was not only planned but also digested and matured in Philadelphia.”
The General paused, smiled, and said to me, “Josiah, add that ‘of course I will suspend my opinion until I have better grounds to found one on.’” The General continued, “Also add some language about the justness of the army’s cause and my earnest desire that its demands should in a lawful manner be addressed.”