Knowing the General and the conflict between his ambitions and his modesty—or at least his attempt at projecting modesty—I suppose there may be some truth to this, but I also had my doubts. The General, unlike other delegates, wore his red-and-blue French and Indian War military uniform to the 1775 Congress. Along the way from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia he went out of his way to review the militia regiments that had been assembled. To what purpose, you may ask, if not to call attention to his military experience? The General once implied to me that he did this to show Virginia’s willingness to fight, but I was not completely convinced.
During the previous Congress, the General got himself appointed to all the committees that dealt with a military solution to our quarrel with Britain. He was on the committee to organize supplies, the committee to procure weapons and manufacture gunpowder, and the committee to explore financing of the war. I was told that during these meetings the General spoke rarely and briefly, although, since he was the only member with military experience from the French and Indian War, his words were heard respectfully.
Charles Willson Peale, the artist, told me that the General’s brevity was a great asset because most of the delegates indulged in long speeches, wearying of the lengthy orations of others but enjoying their own. When someone spoke without eloquence or adornment, the delegates were subconsciously impressed. “That Washington makes sense” was a common refrain. According to Wilson, the General never boasted of his past military exploits, which further impressed the delegates, who were all trying to impress one another.
Stories of the General’s exploits certainly affected the congressmen. From all I could tell, however, while his experiences in the French and Indian War may have been legendary, they said more about the General’s bravery than they said about his generalship. Yes, he had defeated a small force of less than fifty French soldiers, but there were rumors that the French commander was on a diplomatic mission. The General had been forced to surrender Fort Necessity, and I have heard secondhand stories that he picked a poor location to defend that fort.
The General’s military reputation at the time of his appointment really rested on one of the worst defeats in British military history. In the summer of 1755, a few hundred French and Indians ambushed and routed thirteen hundred well-armed troops commanded by the British general Braddock. Braddock was on his way to capture the French Fort Duquesne, the site of the present village of Pittsburgh. Braddock had recruited a twenty-three-year-old colonial aide, George Washington, one of the few soldiers with experience in the region. While the battle was a debacle, Washington emerged a hero. Captain Brown, who claims to have been there, told me the General, while ill from dysentery, rallied the troops during the ambush, took four bullets through his coat, and had two horses shot out from under him. After he was reported killed, the news of the General’s survival, when most British and colonial troops had perished, added to his reputation. It was widely believed that General Braddock had ignored the General’s advice about the impending ambush and that Braddock, realizing his error, had, while dying, bequeathed his manservant and horse to the General. That story I first heard from a soldier who had heard it from his father, but then I also heard it from others.
I once asked the General his opinion of General Braddock. “He was a brave and good officer, Josiah. He tried to rally his troops in the most adverse circumstances, but while our colonials fought well, his British troops fought poorly.” When I pursued the matter and asked if General Braddock had ignored his advice, the General would only say that Braddock’s experience had been on the battlegrounds of Europe, but he would go no further. This may have been due to General Braddock expressing a high opinion of the General, who was always loath to criticize others, especially those who spoke well of him.
Then there was the story that the Indians had stopped shooting at the General during Braddock’s defeat because they were convinced the Great Spirit looked over the General. Nobody ever confirmed that story for me.
Going back to the French and Indian War, I was left wondering whether the stories were factual, fictitious, or just embellished. But the Congress and now his troops did not wonder. All the General would tell me about his experiences in the last war was that spending hours in the freezing Allegheny River Valley of the Pennsylvania backcountry made Valley Forge seem almost idyllic. That the General rarely boasted to me or others of his feats just made people believe them and admire him all the more.
I remember thinking that, even if most of these stories were true, and Congress believed every one of them, how did this qualify the General to command an army of thousands of men? Still, no one else could claim the distinction of having been a colonel who had led hundreds of Americans in battle. In the end, who else could the delegates have chosen? The commander of New England’s troops, Artemus Ward, had acquitted himself well at Bunker Hill, but he was an elderly and obese shopkeeper. Lee had experience but was British-born and considered eccentric. Gates, who had not served as a delegate or in colonial legislative bodies as the General had, did not inspire confidence or trust.
In the end, I think, along with his military experience and the incredible stories of derring-do, what made the Congress select the General as the supreme commander was that it knew him as a fellow delegate who had served for years in a colonial legislative body. The General confessed to me that he spent more time listening to delegates at dinners and nodding than he spent preparing for the Congress’s work. I believe the congressmen wanted one of their own whom they could trust to show the Congress deference.