I was told that, as president of the Congress, John Hancock expected his fellow New Englander, John Adams, to nominate him as commanding general. So Hancock was shocked when Adams nominated the General and Adams’s cousin Samuel seconded the nomination. Hancock must have been deluded to believe the Congress would appoint a merchant just because he was president of the Congress, when his only military experience was marching a silk-stocking company on the Boston Common.
Naturally, the General played his reluctance to take command to the hilt. In commenting on an aide’s aspirations to run for Congress, the General once told me that the lesson he learned from his first unsuccessful effort to run for the Virginia House of Burgesses was that a reluctance to put oneself forth was both modest and effective in getting others to campaign for you. I am not so sure this is as true now in the 1840s as it was back then—or if it was just true for General Washington. In any event, others such as Lee, Gates, and Hancock lobbied for the commanding general position, but the General not only didn’t lobby but I am told he made a show of not doing so. The day before the Congress’s decision, the General told me he had asked Edmund Pendleton, a fellow Virginian, to talk him out of accepting the appointment. Then I heard he fled the room when he was nominated, to show his modesty. Patrick Henry reported that, after the General’s unanimous selection, the General told him, “Remember, Mr. Henry, what I now tell you. From the day I enter upon the command of the American armies, I date my fall, and the ruin of my reputation.” I know Henry repeated this statement to one and all, which just increased Congress’s opinion of the General’s modesty and patriotism. When he addressed the Congress after his appointment, he told that body he was not worthy and not equal to the task, which was probably wise, given their high expectations and what was to follow.
Today everyone believes that after Congress appointed the General, and certainly after the early battles around Boston, we were in an all-out war with Great Britain. This was not true. Many congressmen hoped that the General’s appointment, his dispatch to Boston, and a show of strength would bring the British to their senses and avert or stop the war. The General himself was ambivalent. He told me he did not want war and reflected that “a Brother’s sword sheathed in a Brother’s breast and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America drenched with blood” was not a desirable outcome. But, with the alternative of becoming slaves and losing our rights as Englishmen, how “can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?”
The British, as it turned out, made the choice quite easy. By the following year, after many battles and several fruitless petitions by the Congress to the king, all hope of peace had vanished.
After the General’s appointment, there were the letters to Lady Washington, his stepson, Jacky, and his mother. I have read those and many others, and they are certainly full of affection—although perhaps not the General’s letter to his mother. (She was rumored to be a Tory and kept complaining to all that her most illustrious son was treating her shabbily, although from what I knew about the house in Fredericksburg the General had bought her and the money I kept sending her, this was hard for me to believe.) Every one of the General’s letters explained that he really did not want the assignment but that he feared that refusing would dishonor him and irreparably damage his reputation. Perhaps the General really believed this or perhaps this was a pose. I wasn’t sure back then. Maybe it was a little of both. The General certainly did care about his reputation.
After the General’s appointment came the long trip north to Boston. The General told me that he did not like ceremonies, but he stopped at every town to review troops and receive the assembled people’s blessings. Why, he even stopped for a whole afternoon in New Haven to review three companies of Yale students. His speeches to the New York and Massachusetts legislatures, which I helped draft, struck just the right note. There was the appeal to patriotism and his becoming modesty in assuring the people who had suffered under British generals that he was no military tyrant. “When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen” was one of my better phrases, and the legislators practically swooned. Whatever doubts they had about this new commander from Virginia vanished.
And the General did need to woo state legislatures, who tended to appoint militia commanders for their political connections. Even the General’s political skills did not stop the legislators from initially appointing eight major generals to please their constituents, along with the Congress foisting foreign officers on him with high ranks and little military experience but whom the congressmen found amiable. Fortunately, the General still had the powers of promotion, and he quickly moved up those officers who showed merit. Throughout the war, the General had to protect his forces from political interference, and you can well understand there were many hurt feelings as a result.
Fortunately, the junior officers and enlisted men shared the General’s views that appointments should be based on merit—even the Massachusetts militia, which initially elected their own officers, came around to this view—and their opinions filtered back to the congressmen and state legislators. The General occasionally moaned to me about the politically appointed officers, but he always kept his calm and showed great deference when dealing with the Congress.
As we stood on the Dutch stoop in the back of the headquarters, the General told me that he had learned in the French and Indian War to hold his temper on such matters. As Congress had done in this war, the royal Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie had then appointed the General’s senior commanders and upbraided him for his protests, for his strategy, and for aggressively demanding pay for his men. The General (then a state militia colonel) had resigned in protest. When he told me about this, he looked down to the Hudson and then said, “Josiah, I learned to hold my temper on appointments in the last conflict. I will not let my feelings now betray this cause.” Congress, the governors, and the state legislators never stopped trying to influence the General’s strategies or appointments, and every one of the General’s decisions was scrutinized, but the General held his temper.
So was he a great general? The answer, I felt then and still feel now, over a half century later, depends on which campaigns you look at. Is it the successful siege of Boston, the disaster in New York, the bold triumphs after crossing the Delaware, the long series of defensive battles after Valley Forge, or the final victory at Yorktown?
Then again, maybe it was not the battles at all but his relationship with our ragtag army that made him a great general—a relationship that would play such a great role at Newburgh that week.
I. SUCCESS AT BOSTON