Thus, resplendently dressed as always, the General convened our usual staff meeting on Saturday morning without any reference to the climactic meeting approaching later that morning. David Humphreys, Benjamin Walker, and I sat at the big rough-hewn table in that central room, our office, of seven doors and one window. The General faced us. The meeting opened with discussion of what could only be described as a smelly situation. Most of the recently arrived beef at the Contractors’ Issuing Store was so spoiled as to be inedible. Perhaps the weight of the coming meeting was affecting the General as he eschewed his usual diatribes about corrupt contractors taking advantage of our troops. He merely directed, and Walker transcribed, a message to the quartermaster to cut off all dealings with the offending supplier and threaten that gentleman (if he could be called such) with unspecified retribution if the deception was not rectified.
There followed a discussion of a proper response to the French ambassador, who had written the General a lengthy letter about the difficulty of negotiating a final treaty with Great Britain despite agreement on conditional terms. The ambassador held out hope for a resolution soon but also acknowledged that the war might continue for another year. He linked such a possibility with the recent six-million-livre loan, which the ambassador noted, with disappointment, had largely been consumed by Superintendent of Finance Morris on past debts, rather than helping the General in the field where it could do some good in putting an end to the war. The letter included a not-so-subtle plea for the General to continue the pressure on the British in New York so that the British might not put more pressure on the French West Indies. The General asked Humphreys to draft a letter that was sympathetic to the ambassador’s position but reversed the call for pressure by asking that the French fleet look to coordinate with the Continental Army in an assault on New York, thus replicating the triumph at Yorktown.
Last on the list was an easily accomplished thank-you note to an artist in Dublin—a request that the General accept an admiring seal showing him trampling upon what the Irishman obviously believed to be a common enemy. A day did not go by without someone extolling the General with a letter or sending a seal or drawing showing homage to the General.
The General then dismissed us without a word about the noon meeting. Humphreys, Walker, and I looked at each other. How could this be? We all intended to go to the meeting. We knew the General had signaled his intent earlier in the week not to attend the meeting, but not to even mention it seemed a little much. Was it possible the General did not care about what happened at noon? Maybe there was some plan afoot that he was keeping to himself.
Just a few minutes later, however, the General opened his study door, waved me in, and sat down in his chair. “Josiah, go up to the Temple, take detailed notes, and bring them back here. It will be good to have a record of everything that transpires.” I looked at him for further orders, but the General had returned to writing what appeared to be a letter, although in very large script. I hesitated. Did I have the courage to ask him what he expected to come of the meeting? The General finally looked up and gave me that stare with which all his aides were familiar. It was a stare that conveyed impatience, the feeling that you were imposing on his time, and the question of why you weren’t following orders.
“Yes, General,” I said and then retired.
I stumbled back to my desk. My first thought was that the General obviously did not plan on attending the meeting. Did this mean he was just going to stand aside and let Gates’s aides take over the leadership of the mutiny and propel it forward? My fellow aides did not believe this possible—maybe the General had supporters who would speak against such an outcome. Then another thought occurred to me. Perhaps the General had lined up supporters who would lead the meeting, endorse the anonymous letters, and ask him to command the army’s march on Philadelphia to take over the government? I remembered the General had absented himself from the meeting of the Continental Congress when he had been chosen commanding general so that no one would claim he had influenced the proceedings. Was he pursuing the same tactic now? He could explain to any later critics of the government takeover that he was not present and did not influence the army’s decision, that only reluctantly had he accepted the army’s desire that he should lead it to enforce its just claims.
We aides started walking toward the Temple a little after ten a.m. It was almost a two-hour walk, and earlier in the war we might have ridden, but now we were trying to save forage for the horses. Looking at Humphreys’s and Walker’s faces, I believed they shared my anticipation and dread about what was going to take place. One of us mentioned how it was March 15, the ides of March, but none of us speculated, at least out loud, on the connection to the date when Brutus killed Caesar and tried to overthrow the Roman government. Was Gates playing the role of Brutus and stabbing the General? Was the General playing the role of Cato and defending the republic against Caesar? Or was the General playing the role of Brutus, and if so, stabbing whom? With my head spinning, I decided that such historical analogies, while interesting, led me nowhere.
I admit I was as nervous as before any battle, perhaps more so. Soon I could see the streams of officers ascending the hill to the long, one-story, dark-wood Temple. The coterie of General Gates’s aides was just ahead of me. Majors John Armstrong Jr., Christopher Richmond, and William Barber; Colonels Moore and Stewart; and Lieutenant Colonel James Hughes were in a group. I did not see General Gates, but I was surprised to see that surgeon William Eustis and Quartermaster General Timothy Pickering were with them. Pickering had earlier served briefly as an aide to the General. Their circle was wider than I had thought. While most of the officers walking up the hill seemed rather sober and grim, I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the Gates group seemed rather jaunty and assured, as if they knew what was about to take place.