I delighted in reading the intercepted letters of British junior officers. One wrote, “We have been outgeneraled.” Another complained to his relatives at home that “our men fight well, but our generals are no match for Washington.”
Just a month ago I had written those letters for the General to his cousin Lund back at Mount Vernon, despairing of his reputation. Now the congratulations were pouring in. I do believe our people thought Divine Providence was at work. One letter to the General that I opened said, “The Lord has smote the enemy and you are our Moses.” The General wrote courteous responses but made little comment to me on these extravagant comparisons, which led to my later concerns. Still, I could tell how relieved he was as we settled into quarters at Morristown, New Jersey. His reputation had been not ruined but resurrected.
Later, we received congratulations from Frederick the Great: “The achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots between the 25th of December and the 4th of January, a space of ten days, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military achievements.” For a general concerned about what others thought of him, those were sweet words, coming as they did from one of the greatest military strategists of all time.
The General did not gloat, but, always concerned about his place in history, he said to me, “Josiah, this has been a glorious time. Will our descendants remember us?”
I did not realize it at the time, but during that month, the War for Independence was won. I believe the British and Hessian troops, including the officers, knew after the two battles at Trenton and the one on the road to Princeton that they could not prevail.
It was hard to see that truth as the war continued for seven more years. The British moved still more troops to America. There was the ordeal at Valley Forge where over 20 percent of our soldiers died from lack of nourishment and exposure, and the even worse ordeal two winters later at Morristown. There were more battles, most in Pennsylvania and most ending inconclusively, increasing Congress’s frustration with the General’s largely defensive strategy against our more numerous opponents. There was some brutal fighting in the South as the British organized thousands of loyalists there, but since I was not present as Generals Greene and Lafayette commanded our troops there, I do not have firsthand knowledge.
Just as with the victory at Boston, expectations were unjustly raised; soon, memories of the triumphs on the Delaware started to fade from the minds of some of the congressional and military critics. Still, the accolades from European observers like Frederick and the British press, the devotion of the troops and the General’s staff, and the cheers from the citizenry, many of whom had relatives among the troops, intimidated the General’s would-be rivals and critics. Those closest to and furthest from the action held the highest opinion of Washington’s generalship.
The Congress was highly upset when the General evacuated Philadelphia. So was I as I thought of Prescilla and what fate would befall her when British forces occupied the city. The stories of rape from New Jersey left me imagining the ravishing of Prescilla by British or Hessian soldiers or the plundering of my family. But no importuning by Congress or me could convince the General to repeat the mistake of New York.
When Philadelphia, almost as much a loyalist stronghold as New York, fell in the fall of 1777, the Tory sympathizers welcomed the British with huzzahs, dinners, and luxurious balls where Philadelphia’s ladies flirted and puffed themselves up like pigeons for the British officers. I pictured Prescilla with her narrow waist, modest bodice, flowing black curls cascading down her neck, and soft brown eyes at those balls, and soon, I admit, I feared her seduction by a British colonel in a handsome uniform. Looking back, I am ashamed of my fears. Prescilla sent me a message that she never attended one ball and stayed home as much as possible to avoid British troops on the streets. I suspect my family did not behave as admirably, breaking the boycott of trade with Britain and financing “humanitarian” supplies for British forces.
The true importance of the victories in late 1776 and early 1777 was made clear to me when the General and I dined with General Cornwallis almost five years later on Chesapeake Bay the day after the surrender at Yorktown. I was sitting next to Cornwallis when he leaned over and said, “Your general may not have been a great general at the beginning of the war, but he certainly became a great general.” Then he rose, offered a toast, and said, “When the illustrious part that your Excellency has borne in this long and arduous contest becomes a matter of history, fame will gather your brightest laurels rather from the banks of the Delaware than those of the Chesapeake.”
Of course, while foreign leaders and most of our own people had come to admire the General’s military skills, generals like Gates and the soon-to-be-released Lee still pleaded their cases to and conspired with the Congress. General Arnold defected and wreaked havoc down into Virginia, and men like John Adams continued to opine that they knew more about military affairs than the General.
I fear all these happenings have colored scholars’ opinions of the General’s leadership and will continue to. Still, after Trenton and Princeton, the General’s position was secure with the people and especially with the troops. Both the General and the Congress knew that if Congress replaced him, the hearty men who had fought at Trenton and Princeton and the citizenry would indeed rise up.
That’s what made the week at Newburgh so tense and dramatic for a person such as me who believed in republican principles. All the troops needed was a signal from the General, the signal that never came in earlier mutinies. Of course, if the commanding officer led the way, could it really be called a mutiny? I suspected that if the General led, the troops would follow, and the congressmen, instead of debating the terms of peace with Britain, would find themselves racing to their homes for safety—that is, if they escaped the gallows.
During the years between Princeton and Yorktown, I saw even less emotion from the General than before. The one exception occurred in 1781 when the British sailed up the Potomac and raided Mount Vernon. It was not the raid that incensed the General but his cousin Lund’s response. I took the personal dictation of the General’s letter berating his cousin for saving Mount Vernon by providing supplies and slaves to the raiders. “It would be better that Mount Vernon had burned to the ground,” the General advised his cousin. The words took me aback, knowing how the improvements at Mount Vernon had been the General’s solace throughout the whole war. Still, I believed the emotion expressed by the General was genuine. Given the General’s concern with his reputation, he probably feared his troops and the citizenry would think less of him because his cousin’s collaboration, understandable as it was, had spared Mount Vernon.