by Ron Chernow
Washington considered publishing the poem, but feared it might be misinterpreted as a mark of vanity. Also the poem, with its imagery of crowns and thrones, had some uncomfortable overtones. Nevertheless Washington appears to have received Phillis Wheatley at his Cambridge headquarters in March with a “very courteous reception,” and through Joseph Reed, the poem found its way into print in April.80 It didn’t seem to bother Washington that Wheatley was a slave, and it evidently didn’t bother Wheatley that Washington was a substantial slave owner. Certainly there were Mount Vernon slaves whom Washington knew intimately and some to whom he spoke in a friendly manner, such as Billy Lee, but he had never met any black person on such terms of social equality. That Washington appreciated Wheatley’s poetry and received her warmly showed his great potential for growth. Once again he had displayed a striking capacity to adapt to new circumstances, even though he still had an immense distance to travel on the slavery issue.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Heights
THE REPUBLICAN IDEOLOGY that Washington absorbed from his avid reading of Revolutionary pamphlets never fit easily with his patrician reflexes as a Virginia planter. Perhaps few actions he took during the war exhibited his inconsistent nature in such bold relief as his creation of a personal guard during the dispiriting Cambridge winter. In part, the decision arose from legitimate concerns for his safety. “To guard against assassination, which I neither expect nor dread, is impossible,” Washington later wrote, but he knew that kidnapping attempts were always a possibility, especially since he himself would hatch a couple of failed schemes to kidnap British generals.1
His order to forge a personal guard or Life Guard, as it was commonly called, also sprang from a desire to be surrounded by a crack team of disciplined professionals who would accompany him whenever he rode out to review the troops. Protective of his historical reputation, Washington committed the care of his personal papers to this guard. Having such an elite corps at the beck and call of the chief general was a throwback to the glittering world of European armies.
In general orders for March 11, 1776, Washington instructed the commanding officer of each regiment to pluck out four men apiece for his guard. His description of what he wanted shows how much stock he placed in appearance. The men should be “from five feet eight inches high to five feet ten inches; handsomely and well made; and as there is nothing in his [i.e., Washington’s] eyes more desirable than cleanliness in a soldier, he desires that particular attention may be made in the choice of such men as are neat and spruce.”2 This precision was strange indeed at a time when Washington feared his army might crumble into dust.
A year later Washington issued new instructions that tightened requirements for the unit. Now he wanted his bandbox men to “look well and be nearly of a size.” He narrowed the height range—“I desire that none of the men may exceed in stature 5 feet 10 inches, nor fall short of 5 feet 9 inches”—and said they should be “sober, young, active, and well made.”3 Although Washington allowed class preferences to trump ideology, he didn’t want it to get around and enforced secrecy on the officers: “I am satisfied there can be no absolute security for the fidelity of this class of people, but yet I think it most likely to be found in those who have family connections in the country. You will therefore send me none but natives and men of some property, if you have them. I must insist that in making this choice you give no intimation of my preference of natives as I do not want to create any invidious distinction between them and the foreigners.”4 It should be said that Washington had noticed that a disproportionate number of foreign-born troops defected to the British side to pocket lucrative bounties.
Washington decked out his handpicked men in blue and buff uniforms, their round hats sprouting blue and white feathers and ornamented with bearskin strips. Nervous about the expense, he again demanded secrecy, noting that these costs created an “expense which I would not wish should go forth.”5 His painstaking regard for appearances wasn’t limited to his Life Guard. That January he told his troops that “nothing adds more to the appearance of a man than dress” and that he hoped “each regiment will contend for the most soldierlike appearance.”6 Even in the waning days of the war, he was preoccupied by an absence of hats, for the lack “of which the beauty and uniformity of the other articles will be in a great measure lost . . . and the troops can never make a military appearance.”7 He ordered officers to lend hats an attractive image “by cutting, cocking, or adding such other decorations as they think proper.”8 Washington’s perfectionism about looks extended down to his horses. His most famous steed, Old Nelson, a chestnut horse with a white face, earned the distinction of being the first “nicked” horse in America—that is, the root of his tail was incised so that he carried it with a high flourish. Washington was well aware of the towering impression he made on horseback.
ON JANUARY 14, 1776, Washington informed John Hancock that the state of American arms was “truly alarming.”9 His prayers for more firepower were soon answered. Three days later, beaming with good news, Henry Knox lumbered into camp after a two-month absence. He reported the imminent arrival of heavy weapons carted three hundred miles from Fort Ticonderoga. Incredibly, Knox had taken almost sixty mortars and cannon, weighing about 120,000 pounds, and mounted them on forty-two giant sleds. Through thickening December snow, teams of oxen had hauled this ponderous artillery up and down mountain passes, across frozen rivers, and down village lanes as spectators gaped in wonder. The entire grand procession seemed quasi-miraculous, and Henry Knox became the hero of the hour, executing one of the war’s legendary feats. In an instant, the entire conflict was transformed, for Washington could now contemplate offensive action against British troops bottled up in Boston.
The arrival of the big Ticonderoga guns was providential. Washington remained dangerously short of gunpowder and firearms, and two thousand men lacked muskets or ammunition. Things had come to such a desperate pass that Benjamin Franklin suggested to General Charles Lee that the troops be furnished with bows and arrows. “Those were good weapons,” Franklin admonished him, “not wisely laid aside.”10 So perilous was the plight of his troops that Washington confessed to Joseph Reed, “I have been oblig[e]d to use art to conceal it from my own officers.”11 He had succeeded so brilliantly in pretending to be securely armed that his main supporters overestimated his strength and expected more zeal in dislodging the British. As Washington observed, “The means used to conceal my weakness from the enemy conceals it also from our friends and adds to their wonder.”12
One missing prerequisite for an offensive operation was a blast of cold air to freeze the waterway between the Continental Army and the British troops, allowing an invasion of Boston without employing boats. When the temperature plummeted to near zero in late January, forming an icy crust on the water, Washington monitored it carefully. On February 13, at Lechmere Point, he determined that the ice had sufficiently thickened to freeze the channel all the way to Boston. Hence on February 16 he convened a war council to present a plan for “a bold and resolute assault upon the troops in Boston.”13 His skeptical generals unanimously voted it down, finding the plan flawed because they were short of gunpowder and couldn’t soften up the British beforehand with heavy bombardments. They also believed that Washington had overstated the size of American forces and underrated British strength.
With reluctance, Washington accepted their verdict and said tartly to Joseph Reed that they had waited all year for the bay to freeze, but now that it had, “the enterprise was thought too dangerous!” At the same time, he admitted that his “irksome” situation had perhaps led him to advocate a rash action that might have miscarried.14 There was nothing despotic in Washington’s nature, making him the ideal leader of a republican revolution, but he still had to learn when to trust his instincts and overrule his generals. It was both Washington’s glory and his curse that he was so sensitive to public opinion, so jealous of his image, and so willing to listen to others.
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bsp; The veto of his generals steered the discussion to a second plan that turned into one of the war’s inspired maneuvers. The high ground of Dorchester Heights, which loomed over Boston from the south, could be used to defeat the British if it was fortified. This strategic bluff, more than one hundred feet high, had remained unarmed for several reasons. Spies in Boston reported General Howe’s solemn vow to “sally forth” and snuff out the rebellion if the Americans attempted to occupy it.15 And thorny logistical questions remained. How could fortifications be built on ice-encrusted ground? How could the Americans move the Ticonderoga guns up to the lofty ridge within full view and range of enemy guns?
The ingenious solution was to haul the guns into position under cover of darkness during a single night. Noise from the operation would be muffled by firing steady salvos from Roxbury, Cobble Hill, and Lechmere Point and by wrapping wagon wheels with straw to deaden their sound. To obstruct the vision of British troops, the patriots would throw up intervening screens of hay bales. Washington and his generals hit upon the clever expedient of prefabricating the fortifications elsewhere, making it necessary only to transport them to the heights. By now a champion bluffer, Washington also had earth-filled barrels lined up before the parapets, giving a deceptive show of strength. These convenient props could also come thunderously crashing down on any British troops foolhardy enough to storm the hillside.
By late February, Washington was persuaded that the contemplated operation would lure the British into an engagement on terms favorable to the Americans. One lesson he had learned from the French and Indian War was that fear was contagious in battle, especially among inexperienced troops. Without disclosing the exact nature of the impending operation, he warned his soldiers bluntly that “if any man in action shall presume to skulk, hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down as an example of cowardice.”16
At midnight on March 2 the patriots began firing diversionary volleys at the British, who replied with earsplitting cannon fire—sounds of war loud enough to startle Abigail Adams from her sleep in nearby Braintree. These cacophonous exchanges persisted through the next night. On the night of March 4, Washington recalled, the moon was “shining in its full luster,” as the weather cooperated with the unfolding operation. “A finer [night] for working could not have been taken out of the whole 365,” wrote the Reverend William Gordon. “It was hazy below [the Heights] so that our people could not be seen, though it was a bright moonlight night above on the hills.”17 Washington directed operations on horseback, his familiar form visible in silhouette to his men. Under the tutelage of Henry Knox, the American artillery strafed Boston in a ferocious cannonade. “Our shells raked the houses and the cries of the poor women and children frequently reached our ears,” wrote Lieutenant Samuel Blachley Webb.18
Hidden by the roar and flash of cannon, General John Thomas supervised three thousand soldiers and oxen-led wagons as they dragged the big guns, weighty barrels, and preassembled ramparts up the steep slope. The unforgiving ground was covered with ice two feet thick, packed hard as rock. At sunrise on March 5 the British saw that something wondrous had happened overnight: Dorchester Heights had been converted into a full-fledged fortress, making the British occupation of Boston seem untenable. Not a single American soldier had been lost in the operation. Legend maintains that, upon beholding the massed American guns, an incredulous General Howe exclaimed, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.”19 On this anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Washington strode among his men, shouting at them to “remember it is the fifth of March, and avenge the death of your brethren,” and the men roared back their assent.20 As in the French and Indian War, Washington was no remote leader but an active, rousing presence. “His Excellency General Washington is present animating and encouraging the soldiers,” wrote Dr. James Thacher, “and they in return manifest their joy, and express a warm desire for the approach of the enemy.”21
The second phase of Washington’s strategy called for Generals Putnam, Sullivan, and Greene to speed across the Charles River with four thousand men and pummel Boston if Howe’s troops could be drawn out into a bloody engagement at Dorchester Heights. The British seemed about to wade into this cleverly laid trap. Despite skepticism among some officers, General Howe elected to throw more than two thousand troops against the heights, and legions of bystanders scurried eagerly across the surrounding hills to await the grand battle scene. Washington was convinced that, if he could flush the British from Boston, they could be bombarded by lethal fire.
John Trumbull remembered Washington making one last meticulous survey of his defenses, only to be frustrated by an unforeseen shift in the weather: “Soon after his visit, the rain, which had already commenced, increased to a violent storm and [a] heavy gale of wind, which deranged all the enemy’s plan of debarkation, driving the ships foul of each other.”22 Girded for battle, Washington was woefully disappointed and told General Lee that the storm was “the most fortunate circumstance for them and unfortunate for us that could have happen[e]d. As we had everything so well prepared for their reception . . . I am confident we should have given a very good account of them.”23 Some chroniclers have interpreted the raging tempest as an accidental blessing that safeguarded American troops set to cross a mile of open water, only to encounter well-entrenched redcoats in Boston. “Had the storm not intervened,” wrote James T. Flexner, “ . . . the troops Washington had intended to land in Boston could never have regained their boats. They would have been trapped. They would either have had to annihilate the British or be themselves entirely defeated.”24 The one certainty is that the storm averted an engagement that might have been decisive for one side or the other.
The upshot of the successful arming of Dorchester Heights was a British decision to evacuate Boston, albeit with British forces largely unmolested. Some historians have argued that Howe planned to leave anyhow and that this fresh threat merely accelerated the timetable and afforded a convenient cover story. For Washington, it marked a triumphant finale. On the night of March 9 Howe unleashed a deafening cannonade against Dorchester Heights, firing seven hundred cannonballs, a move that barely camouflaged frantic movements inside Boston to abandon the town. As Washington monitored developments, the town deteriorated into a scene of tumultuous disorder; British troops pitched disabled cannon and produce barrels into the harbor so they wouldn’t fall into patriot hands. Debris bobbed in the water everywhere or lay heaped upon the shore. Crowds of desperate Loyalists surged onto overloaded ships in a chaotic spectacle. The sense of shock was palpable among these refugees, prompting some to dive to death in the chilly waters. As Washington wrote to his brother Jack, “One or two have done what a great many ought to have done long ago—committed suicide. By all accounts, there never existed a more miserable set of beings than these wretched creatures now are, taught to believe that the power of Great Britain was superior to all opposition.”25 On Sunday, March 17, with the distant din of patriot cheers ringing in their ears, nine thousand quick-stepping redcoats and numerous Loyalists boarded an armada of 120 ships stretching nine miles out to sea and left Boston forever. “Surely it is the Lord’s doings and it is marvelous in our eyes,” wrote Abigail Adams .26
In a measure of Washington’s growing maturity, he indulged in no public bragging, even if he gloated in the privacy of print. Priding himself on staying cool-headed, he didn’t give way to jubilation, especially since it took ten days for the British ships to sail away. One of his hallmarks as a commander was unremitting vigilance, and he worried that British soldiers would slip ashore in disguise or even launch a surprise attack. On the alert for medical problems, Washington made sure that the first five hundred men who entered Boston were immune to smallpox. Instead of basking in the limelight, he permitted General Artemas Ward to lead the victorious vanguard into the city. When Washington himself entered on March 18, he did so unobtrus
ively, almost invisible to the elated multitudes, and studied the town with professional curiosity. It had suffered extensive damage, with buildings razed, churches gutted, supply depots emptied, and windows smashed, but Washington said the town was “not in so bad a state as I expected to find it.”27 He must have thanked the Lord for the freakish storm, since he found the British defenses “amazingly strong . . . almost impregnable, every avenue fortified.”28 He toured the Beacon Hill home of John Hancock and found the furniture in decent shape, with family oil portraits still on the walls. In their haste to leave, the British had discarded a huge trove of supplies, including 30 cannon, 3,000 blankets, 5,000 bushels of wheat, and 35,000 planks of wood.
In general, Washington handled his maiden victory with aplomb. When he informed Hancock of the British evacuation, he had the tact to congratulate not himself but Hancock and “the honorable Congress.”29 Instead of condoning the plunder that accompanies victory, Washington threatened to punish offenders severely. He set an orderly tone and deferred to civilian authorities, demanding that suspected Tories still in Boston be guarded by his men until the Massachusetts legislature ruled on their future. “If any officer or soldier shall presume to strike, imprison, or otherwise ill-treat any of the inhabitants, they may depend on being punished with the utmost severity,” he announced.30 In a beautiful symbolic act, he returned a horse given to him after learning that it had been swiped from a departed Tory who had been “an avow[e]d enemy to the American cause.”31 Once again, by opposing vindictive actions, Washington shaped the tone and character of the American army.
