Well, here we are in the 1840s, and we are still talking about colonization. Our representative, Abe Lincoln, keeps touting the idea, and I suppose it is better than President John Tyler’s suggestion that we lessen slavery by annexing Texas and “diffusing” slavery westward. Still, I have come to believe there can be no ultimate solution but the one the General suggested: abolition preceded by and coupled with education.
While I was skeptical, the General did free his slaves and provide for their education and welfare under his last will and testament. I wish the General had acted sooner, but he was ahead of his time. Some Founding Fathers were abolitionists, but they were not born into slaveholding families. And I don’t know of any Southern planters in 1799 who freed their slaves, let alone dipped into their own pockets to provide for their slaves’ education and welfare. I suppose that’s why next week our local abolition group here in Illinois will hold its annual meeting on the same day it celebrates the General’s birthday.
But back to the Marquis de Lafayette. Given his propensity for grandiose sentiments, I truly believe he looked upon himself as a romantic hero from medieval times and upon the General as the greatest dragon slayer of them all. While Lafayette could stand up to the General on issues such as abolition, he was blind to any flaws in the General’s character. “Josiah,” he told me, “when I first met the General, I beheld a man so tall and noble and majestic. Our great advantage over the British is our General. He is a man formed for this revolution and is worthy of the adoration of his country.”
As one who had shared the General’s quarters for years, I thought at the time this was a great exaggeration born of Lafayette’s desire to see himself as a knight-errant giving devoted allegiance as his lord pursued the grail of our revolutionary struggle.
Why did so many swoon over the General? Was I the only one to see, along with his good deeds, his temper, vanity, and posturing?
The General was quite calculating in how he appeared to men like Lafayette or women like Abigail Adams. Every step, every word, every pose was, I thought, designed to impress whoever was in his company. My Quaker upbringing had taught me that one should present oneself in a simple and forthright manner without artifice (although I admit that on occasion I liked that Prescilla looked on me as a shining knight).
The General was certainly simple when it came to his uniforms—probably because he was following Rule 52 in those infernal Rules of Civility: “In your apparel, be modest and endeavor to accommodate nature rather than to procure admiration.” He never wore the medals that states and foreign governments bestowed upon him. However, even before a battle, he spent minutes having Will make sure every hair and thread was in place—just another example of how the General calculated his every military and political move.
That week at Newburgh, and the years since, have, in some ways but not all, altered my opinion of this part of the General’s character.
In any event, none of these figures whom we look back on today as Founding Fathers, except for the General, was present that week in Newburgh. How the drama played out rested with the mutineers, the army, and the General.
As the mutiny loomed, I remember retiring on Wednesday evening confused, nervous, and excited about what would follow on Thursday.
Chapter Four
DAY FOUR—THURSDAY
Councils of War
Reflections on Generalship
How does the lustre of our father’s actions,
Through the dark cloud of ills that cover him,
Break out, and burn with more triumphant brightness!
His suff’rings shine, and spread a glory round him;
Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause
Of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome.
—Portius, Cato, Act I, Scene 1
On Thursday the General did not make his usual morning rounds. I was sent to fetch numerous officers to meetings with him, and they came and went all day. Generals Knox, Rufus Putnam, McDougall, and Hand; Colonels Brooks, Glover, and Ogden; Majors Shaw and Davis; and Captains Howard and McReynolds were just some of the officers who met with the General. I do not remember their names, but there were six or eight others. Many returned for second meetings.
The General did not even pause for the usual three p.m. dinner, much to the annoyance of Lady Washington and Mrs. Hamilton, the Washingtons’ housekeeper.
The meetings themselves did not seem unusual, although the fact that the General was meeting with officers individually or in groups of two or three did. It was the General’s habit to seek advice at meetings attended by many of his commanders, sometimes calling in junior officers and even privates on occasion. That was something that both pleased and irritated his commanders. It was not something generals did back then, although I am told that the practice is now encouraged at West Point. Certainly his British counterparts did not do this. The notion that Generals Gage, Howe, Clinton, or Cornwallis would hold a council before acting on any crucial matter was laughable. I thought it was one of the General’s virtues and a practice you would not guess from his sometimes imperious manner. Of course, the meetings I’d attended over the past seven years had left me wondering if the General was really seeking advice or if he was guiding the meeting to a view he already held, the better to solicit the enthusiastic support of his commanders, who then believed they had been part of the decision.
There was one other thing that was highly unusual about Thursday’s meetings. None of the General’s aides, including me, were included. This, I admit, annoyed me. I was present at most of the General’s meetings and afterward was frequently directed to draft a letter or an order, but not on that day. I had never seen the General so secretive. I had no doubt the meetings concerned the coming Saturday meeting and the circulating letters, but beyond that I was left to speculate. Despite my curiosity, I did not ask the General to let me attend. I almost never addressed the General unless asked and neither did the other aides at Newburgh.
Benjamin Walker, David Humphreys, and I were left sitting at the big table in that dark main room wondering what the officers were planning behind the study door. I couldn’t help wondering what questions were now being discussed. How to derail the gathering forces of mutiny at or before the Saturday meeting? Perhaps, but since the General had indicated in his Tuesday order that he would not attend, how was this to be accomplished? Or was the discussion over how to channel the Saturday meeting toward the General assuming leadership of the mutiny and a coming march on Philadelphia? That the officers summoned were those most loyal to the General seemed beyond question. With the possible exception of Nathanael Greene, who was down in the Carolinas; Hamilton, who, now a member of the Congress, was in Philadelphia; and Lafayette, who was back in France, those meeting with the General had most loyally followed him and backed him from the early days of the war.