I remember a cannonball landing near us. I jumped, hoping the General had not noticed. Our chaplain, Israel Evans, urged the General to move back. The General coolly replied, “Mr. Evans, you had better carry that home and show it to your wife and children.”
I’ll never forget the dejected looks of the British and Hessians as they surrendered while the British band, unaware of the irony, played “The World Turned Upside Down.” That most of our troops were dressed in rags while the French and British wore fancy uniforms did not diminish the glee that everyone in our ranks felt. The General’s commanders were understandably exultant after the surrender, but the General, who was less downcast in defeat, was more restrained in victory, probably because he did not believe the king would back off. Or maybe it was because of Rule 22 in those Rules of Civility he always kept on his desk, which stated: “Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy.” Whatever the reason, I heard him warn against celebration. “Let history huzzah for us,” he told us. But Lafayette would have none of that. “The play, General, is over,” he said.
So was he a fine general?
My great-grandchildren’s schoolteacher may believe Washington was overrated as a general. This also seems to be the view of some modern writers I have read. I can tell you the French did not believe this, and neither did the British and Hessians after Trenton and Princeton, nor did Frederick the Great or leaders of the British Parliament. No doubt future historians will point to his New York defeats or credit his successes to poor British generalship. But as Benjamin Franklin pointed out in a letter to a British friend, a copy of which he sent to the General, “An American planter was chosen by us to command our troops and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals, baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers.” He could have added that those five generals commanded troops that were more numerous and better trained, armed, and clothed than the General’s.
After the war, I learned that the British had sent half of their army and two-thirds of their navy to our shores—at a time when Britain was at war with France and Spain. Overall, His Majesty sent forty-three thousand British troops to America. On top of this, they enlisted twenty-nine thousand Hessian mercenaries and twenty-one thousand American loyalists, primarily from the South. And that didn’t include the hundreds of British ships and upward of twenty thousand sailors. I suppose if you counted our various armies and all the dispersed part-time state militias, you could come up with a large number that partly closed the gap. But the British forces were under centralized command. The General never had more than twelve thousand fit men under his direction.
The General had his failings. He let the Congress push him into defending New York, where we got whipped, and he himself pushed the overcomplicated and disastrous forays to emancipate Canada. He had the misguided view that the threatened loss of Canada would lead to a quick end to the British war on our states. He once confessed to me this was his greatest mistake in the war. “Josiah, how could I have been so stupid as to send those men on such an absurd and fruitless expedition?”
But as I said, the General learned from his mistakes. As the war progressed, he relied less on complex battle strategies in favor of simpler ones. He overcame initial congressional meddling and his own inherited preference for gentlemen officers to make appointments based on merit rather than the British process of combining birth, connections, and merit in their appointments. I saw his attitude toward discipline change. He started out by hanging mutineers and severely whipping those he caught deserting. He never wavered regarding the first group, but midway through the war, he started pardoning returning deserters. His attitude on disciplining officers evolved. He always was in favor of court-martialing and punishing officers who did not perform, but his definition of performance changed. The value the General placed on criticism and advice, always great, even when opposed to his own or fellow generals’ plans, increased.
The General’s appreciation of dissent and free speech was brought home to me earlier at Newburgh by the court-martial of General McDougall, the crusty Son of Liberty with the Scottish brogue whom the General trusted and respected. McDougall was accused of slandering General Heath in front of subordinates. The panel of officers convicted General McDougall and recommended a severe and public reprimand. Yet the General hesitated for weeks. When I asked him why, he would only say, “This matter potentially has implications that go far beyond whether General McDougall is reprimanded.” I could not see what he was talking about. McDougall was a fine general, certainly more able than the politically appointed General Heath, but along with criticizing Heath’s generalship, General MacDougall had called Heath “a knave” in front of junior officers and troops. How could you maintain a command structure when one officer was openly criticizing another? Maybe, I thought, the General’s reluctance was due to his personal fondness for General McDougall. There the matter rested, until weeks later when the General called me in and dictated a brisk order upholding the court-martial verdict. The General attached a footnote to the order, however, that free speech was very important if an army was to function effectively, and criticism such as that leveled by General McDougall should be encouraged, albeit not this kind of personally disparaging criticism.
The General knew when to withdraw, when to defend, and when to attack. He generally concentrated rather than divided his forces, a lesson he first learned from General Braddock’s mistakes and then again from his own in New York. He could be bold without being suicidal. He knew there were times to be cautious, as he was for most of the war, but also times to be daring, as he was at Trenton and Princeton. Perhaps the British generals were slow to follow up on their successes and really pursue our forces, but the General took advantage of their slowness. I do not recall the General ever criticizing individual British generals, although once he wryly observed that, as a group, they were better generals during battles than between battles. But then the General rarely criticized anyone outside his command. I suspect he knew that criticizing British generalship would diminish his own reputation for both generalship and modesty.
Above all, the General held together our army at its darkest hours when no one else could have. As Lafayette remarked after the Battle of Brandywine, “With his stately appearance and dignified courage, no one else could provoke such waves of enthusiasm among our troops.” But would these qualities enable the General to overcome the challenge on Saturday?
Chapter Five
DAY FIVE—FRIDAY
Final Preparations
And let me perish, but in Cato’s judgment,
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
—Cato, Cato, Act II