I was struck by how many of the phrases in the resolution echoed the phrases of the General’s address. Perhaps this was just a coincidence or maybe the committee members had good memories.
The officers roared their approval as the presiding General Gates looked around the room, apparently searching for one of his colleagues to speak. He finally called on Quartermaster General Pickering, who I thought showed great courage in arguing against the resolution. He pointed out the army’s hypocrisy in damning with infamy letters that only days before they had read “with rapture.” I had to admit Pickering was right. He reminded the assembly that nothing had changed in the intervening time. But things had changed—the General had spoken and completely swayed the officers’ feelings. General Pickering was shouted down. General Gates, sensing the situation was beyond his control, called for a vote, and the motion was adopted unanimously with not even General Pickering voting no. With that, the meeting ended upon a motion for adjournment.
As I left the Temple, I could sense the warm feelings of those around me. It was as if we had realized that we had averted danger and had followed the idealistic, but right, course. I walked back to Hasbrouck House with David Humphreys and Benjamin Walker, and we talked about how remarkable it was that the General, who most, including us, regarded as an unremarkable speaker and writer, had changed the direction of the meeting so abruptly. As I reflect back, I have come to believe that the General was a more remarkable speaker and writer than we gave him credit for. It is often written that, during his presidency, the General was not a politician. Of course, he was a great politician in large part because he was not perceived as a politician. It was the same with his writing and speaking. The other Founding Fathers orated and wrote with embellishments, including frequent Greek and Latin allusions. Everything they wrote was a distinguished essay, every speech a great oration. And I notice these essays and speeches are quoted often and inserted in school textbooks. The General, by contrast, wrote for his audience, albeit, because of his lack of formal schooling, his writing included many misspellings. He spoke to his audiences as he had that day at Newburgh. And, unlike on other less important occasions, he did not stammer.
Many times I saw the General move audiences. I told you how he had done so prior to the second battle of Trenton with his plea for the troops to reenlist. Just months after Newburgh and the reoccupation of New York City, the General took leave of his closest officers—those who stood with him that week at Newburgh—at Fraunces Tavern near the Battery on Manhattan Island. He had not prepared any speech to my knowledge and had declined my offer to help. All he gave was a simple toast, but all of us who were there were moved to tears.
“With a heart filled with love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”
The same emotions were evident that fall when he resigned his commission to the Congress, then housed in Annapolis in the hope that a more attractive city might attract more delegates. But only twenty representatives even bothered to show up to honor the man who had probably saved their positions and perhaps their lives. That was a speech I edited, although most of the words and thoughts were the General’s. After referring to the army, forged into a “band of brothers,” he went on, haltingly, “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take leave of all employments of public life.”
The congressmen there, all of whom thought of themselves as more accomplished speakers than the General, wept, including the presiding officer, Congressman Mifflin, who had been part of the Conway Cabal plot to replace the General.
And yet on the way out, I heard one congressman remark, “He is a great man; if only he was a great speaker.”
Humphreys, Walker, and I returned from the Temple to Hasbrouck House that Saturday afternoon. We stood outside the General’s study, eager to deliver the great news.
Finally, as the General’s chief aide, who the General had commissioned as the reporting scribe on the meeting, I tentatively knocked, and the General bid us enter. I opened the door to the study, where we found the General sitting at his desk calmly reading Henry Hume’s The Gentleman Farmer.
“Well, Josiah,” said the General rising, “you took notes on the meeting?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “Would you like to see them?”
“Yes, Josiah,” he said, reaching out his hand.
I turned over the notes, but I could no longer restrain myself. “Sir, the meeting ended most satisfactorily with the officers unanimously approving a resolution endorsing your sentiments. I wrote the text of the resolution for you to see,” I said, pointing to the notes.
The General sat back down in his chair. As he read the resolution and my other notes, he handed me a draft of a letter to the president of the Congress to be sent the following day. After I corrected some misspellings and grammatical errors, it read as follows:
I have the honor to inform your Excellency, for the satisfaction of the Congress, that the meeting of the Officers, which was mentioned in my last, has been held Yesterday; and that it has terminated in a manner, which I had reason to expect, from a knowledge of that good Sense and steady Patriotism of the Gentlemen of the Army, which, on frequent occasions, I have discovered. The report of the meeting, with the other papers, which will accompany it, I do myself the honor to transmit to Congress, as soon as they can possibly be prepared. With the highest respect, I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most obedient servant,
George Washington
That was it. It was as if nothing had happened, that the meeting I had just witnessed had been perfunctory. There was no mention of the General’s role or his amazing speech. Just the emphasis on the patriotism of the army. For a man I knew to be as concerned about his reputation as anyone, the letter read as if he had not even been present. Then I remembered the General had forwarded the mutinous letters to Congress earlier in the week. The Congress would know or would soon find out from the stories of others what had happened and give the General the credit he was due. For those looking at his note, the General’s reputation for modesty would reach new highs. “What a great man and so modest,” many would exclaim.