WASHINGTON AND DUELING, PAGE 83
Washington’s aides—Laurens, Cadwalader, and others—challenging the General’s detractors to duels was indeed, as Josiah observes, ironic, given Washington’s disapproval of duels, which were then a common practice. While his disapproval was based on sound moral principles, that disapproval, surprising coming from this battle-tested general, produced huzzahs. I suspect it was a position Washington took after considerable thought. And if he had been a slight, craven-looking figure, I don’t doubt Washington would have participated in duels. But Washington was a strapping physical specimen known to have faced great tests in battle and to have taken lessons in dueling. Since no one could doubt his courage or his skill, what was to be gained? By refusing to duel, as in many aspects of Washington’s life, Washington won accolades by doing the unexpected.
In 1755, Washington got into a political argument with a man of small physical stature, William Payne. Payne knocked Washington down with a stick. Washington was restrained by friends from assaulting Payne, but a challenge to a duel under the customs of the day was soon expected. Instead, Washington retired, thought the matter over, and invited Payne to a meeting the next day where he apologized for being in the wrong. Where a duel was expected with Washington victorious, none took place, leaving Payne and others astonished and impressed with Washington’s display of character. (See Douglas S. Freeman, George Washington, vol. 2, 146.)
Washington considered his actions carefully and often did the unexpected with surprisingly good results. Speak little, and when you speak, people will listen more. Decline to discuss your genuine exploits, and people will consider them even greater. Apologize to someone rather than challenge them to a duel that you are expected to win, and people will admire you all the more. The pattern is quite clear, and the behavior, foreign to politicians of our century, was admired in Washington’s day.
I. SUCCESS AT BOSTON
COMPARISON OF WASHINGTON TO MOSES, PAGES 92, 97, 120, 140
Governor Trumbull’s note with the flour comparing Washington to Moses, a note Trumbull really wrote, was not an isolated comparison. The war abounded with biblical references, particularly on the American side, and Josiah’s description of the constant comparisons of the colonists to the ancient Israelites, of King George to the Pharaoh, and of Washington to Moses was, if anything, understated. We have never had an American leader compared to a biblical figure the way Washington in his time was compared to Moses. Many colonists saw themselves as the heirs to the promised land and Washington as the “reincarnation of the faithful Hebrew deliverer” (Barry Schwartz, Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, 176). Hundreds of sermons after Washington’s death compared him to Moses. Reverend Timothy Dwight noted, “Comparison with him [Moses] is become almost proverbial.”
When Washington wasn’t being compared to Moses, he was being compared to the saints. Clergymen wanted to insert Washington’s farewell address into the Bible as an epilogue. (See Ron Chernow, Washington, 813.) No wonder Josiah was worried about the comparisons to Moses affecting Washington’s judgment about taking power that week at Newburgh.
II. DISASTER IN NEW YORK
PUBLIC OPINION TURNS AGAINST THE REVOLUTION, PAGES 103-107
Earlier we learned that those who were neutral or loyal to the king made up a sizable portion of the American population. After the massive defeat in New York in 1776 and the retreat across New Jersey to the Delaware River, one can imagine the impact on American public opinion. The British were not oblivious to this development. Relying on intelligence from General James Robertson and others (in military parlance today, we would call these men “old American hands”), the British believed that the Revolution was the work of a few “hot-headed designing men” and that two-thirds of Americans were loyal to the king. (See David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 160.) Their strategy, therefore, was to pacify, restore order, and encourage a loyalist government in occupied New Jersey. Toward that end, the British offered amnesty, guarantees of life and property, and a chance for advancement to those who took a loyalty oath and pledged allegiance to the king.
The British belief in majority loyalist numbers was naive, but not naive was their claim that thousands of New Jersey residents took the loyalty oath to the king. As one Continental soldier observed, those taking the oath “consisted of the very rich and very poor, while the middling class held their constancy” (David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 162). One of New Jersey’s richest men and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton, signed the oath to the king after harsh treatment and imprisonment. (He later renounced the oath, took a new oath to the Congress, and retained his home and property, which today is the official residence of New Jersey governors.)
Unfortunately for the British, the pacification policy went awry. Foraging became compulsory foraging, which turned into plundering, which turned into widespread rape upon the part of the British and especially their Hessian allies. Gang rapes by both British soldiers and officers were documented in diaries of British officers and American investigations. As American civilians responded by taking up arms, the British invoked the European laws of war that a man fighting out of uniform was a bandit or assassin who could be executed at once. To the Americans who believed civilians had the natural right to defend their liberties, such conduct quickly turned friends of the British into fierce foes. With the failure of the British pacification policy, the victories at Trenton and Princeton described by Josiah sparked a wholesale rejection by New Jersey residents of loyalty oaths to the king, the taking of new ones to the Congress, and widespread attacks on British forces. (For those wanting to read more about the war for public opinion in New Jersey in 1776 and 1777, see the chapter “Americans Under Foreign Rule” in David Hackett Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing, 160–81.)
III. TRIUMPH—THE FIRST CROSSING OF THE DELAWARE
THE IMPACT OF THE BATTLE OF TRENTON, PAGE 108-12
No battle in the Revolutionary War receives more attention in our high school history textbooks than the Battle of Trenton. But, if anything, the importance is understated. There were just two American combat deaths (more died of exposure to cold) compared to the enemy’s twenty-two killed, eighty-four wounded, and almost nine hundred Hessian prisoners! It was the first American victory following a string of defeats. Josiah was right in exulting over the triumph. The British historian George Trevelyan wrote: “It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world” (Ron Chernow, Washington, 276).