by Ron Chernow
The discontent crested in October when Washington got wind of the rumored promotion to major general of Brigadier Thomas Conway. An engraving of Conway shows a man with a cool, haughty air. His small chin, tightly pursed lips, and alert eyes give him a petulant expression. Born in Ireland, he had been an officer in the French Army but, unlike Lafayette, was a self-aggrandizing fortune hunter. For him, the Continental Army was a convenient rung to grasp in clambering up the military hierarchy in France. Nathanael Greene saw him as “a man of much intrigue and little judgment” who joined the Continental Army to cash in on the fight.26 “I freely own to you it was partly with a view of obtaining sooner the rank of brigadier in the French army that I have joined” the American army, Conway conceded to another officer that January.27 An excellent judge of men, Washington recoiled from this self-promoting braggart and may also have learned that the sharp-tongued Irishman had denigrated him after Brandywine. “No man was more a gentleman than General Washington or appeared to more advantage at his table . . . but as to his talents for the command of an army, they were miserable indeed” was Conway’s verdict.28 Some of those skeptical of Washington’s ability gravitated to Conway. “He seems to possess [General] Lee’s knowledge and experience without any of his oddities and vices,” Dr. Benjamin Rush declared. “He is, moreover, the idol of the whole army.”29
Washington was incensed to learn about Conway’s impending promotion, especially since he would be jumped over twenty more senior brigadiers. He had been dismayed by Conway’s behavior at Germantown, accusing him of deserting his men, and now he departed from his usual practice of staying aloof from congressional deliberations. He wrote to Richard Henry Lee that Conway’s promotion would “be as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted.”30 Washington seldom spoke so brusquely, but there was more. “General Conway’s merit then as an officer, and his importance in this army, exists more in his own imagination than in reality. For it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his untold.”31 Most shocking of all, Washington seemed ready to tender his own resignation. “To sum up the whole, I have been a slave to the service . . . but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way.”32 Washington was showing how adroit he could be at infighting, how skillful in suppressing lurking challenges to his supremacy. In many ways, he was more sure-footed in contesting political than military threats. He knew that power held in reserve—power deployed firmly but reluctantly—was always the most effective form. On October 20 Richard Henry Lee assured Washington that Conway would never be bumped up to major general, but Lee, a secret critic of Washington himself, disclosed something else disturbing: Congress intended to overhaul the Board of War, switching it from a legislative committee to an executive agency, staffed by general officers who would supervise the military. This news came as a revelation to Washington, who could only regard it as a powerful rebuke.
Amid an atmosphere of rampant suspicion, Washington received fresh proof that enemies in high places conspired against him. As mentioned, Gates had assigned his young aide James Wilkinson to carry the news of Saratoga to Congress. Later described by Washington as “lively, sensible, pompous, and ambitious,” Wilkinson had a bombastic addiction to storytelling.33 En route to Congress, this indiscreet young man paused in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he met with an aide to Lord Stirling and regaled him with stories of Gates’s savage comments about Washington’s actions at Brandywine Creek. He also showed him an inflammatory line that General Conway had written to General Gates, indicting Washington’s leadership. “Heaven has been determined to save your country,” Conway wrote, “or a weak general and bad councillors would have ruined it.”34 Lord Stirling, loyal to Washington, passed along this offensive comment to him, remarking that “such wicked duplicity of conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect.”35 Washington was stunned to see the remark, which suggested blatant collusion between the two generals to blacken his name.
In meeting the threat, Washington reverted to his favorite technique, earlier used with Joseph Reed: sending an incriminating document to its author without comment. He would betray as little as possible of what he knew so as to let the guilty party incriminate himself. In sending Conway the line, Washington later said, he intended to convey “that I was not unapprised of his intriguing disposition.”36 Conway countered with a cagey note, telling Washington that he was “willing that my original letter to General Gates should be handed to you. This, I trust, will convince you of my way of thinking.”37 Of course, he didn’t specify what his way of thinking was. On November 16, while avoiding any mention of their feud, Conway sent Washington a curt announcement: “The hopes and appearance of a French war, along with some other reasons, have induc[e]d me to send my resignation to Congress.”38 Since the resignation wasn’t accepted, internecine warfare between the two men persisted.
When Washington confronted Gates about the letter, the latter described himself as “inexpressibly distressed” by the news, said he kept his papers closely guarded, and wondered about the identity of “the villain that has played me this treacherous trick.”39 Later on he contended the offending paragraph was a forgery. It didn’t seem to occur to him that his own careless aide had caused the leak. Turning the tables on Washington, Gates even came up with a far-fetched accusation: that Alexander Hamilton, during his recent diplomatic mission, had purloined the papers from his files. “Those letters have been stealingly copied,” Gates told Washington, turning himself into the injured party. “Crimes of that magnitude ought not to remain unpunished.”40 To Gates’s mortification, Washington revealed that the culprit was Gates’s own personal aide, the talkative James Wilkinson.
A principal instigator in the move to replace Washington was his former aide Thomas Mifflin, now a general. A portrait of Mifflin shows a man full of personality and high spirits who was very direct in manner. Even though Washington had befriended him and named him one of his initial aides, the handsome, eloquent Mifflin harbored a secret animosity toward his patron. Washington learned of his treachery with consternation. “I have never seen any stroke of ill fortune affect the general in the manner that this dirty underhand dealing has done,” his aide Tench Tilghman wrote.41 Washington had already developed doubts about Mifflin, whom he thought had exploited his job as quartermaster general for personal profit, and he later wrote about him with biting sarcasm as an opportunistic, fair-weather friend.
Although he had known and liked Conway in France, Lafayette had concluded that he was a menace to his mentor. In late November Lafayette warned Washington that certain elements in Congress “are infatuated with Gates . . . and believe that attacking is the only thing necessary to conquer.”42 Lafayette didn’t exaggerate. Whatever inhibitions had existed about defaming Washington’s name had now disappeared. “Thousands of lives and millions of property are yearly sacrificed to the insufficiency of our Commander-in-Chief,” Pennsylvania attorney general Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant wrote to Massachusetts congressman James Lovell. “Two battles he has lost for us by two such blunders as might have disgraced a soldier of three months standing.”43 Benjamin Rush and Richard Henry Lee lent open or covert support to the attacks on Washington, while John Adams, for all his dyspeptic squawking, retained residual admiration for the commander in chief and never went so far as to try to oust him.
In late November Congress reorganized the Board of War, and Richard Henry Lee saw to it that Mifflin was named to it. Mifflin then confirmed Washington’s worst fears by securing the appointment of Horatio Gates as its president. Gates would retain his rank as major general and gain a supervisory role over Washington. Leaving little doubt that he wanted Gates to usurp Washington’s authority, Congressman Lovell told him, “We want you in different places . . . We want you most near Germantown.”44 Congress dealt out further punishment to Washington. When he protested that his men were famished, Congress passed a snide resolution, chastising him for excessive “delicacy in exerting milita
ry authority” to requisition goods from local citizens.45 As Lovell gloated to Samuel Adams, the resolution “was meant to rap a demi-G[od] over the knuckles.”46
A still heavier blow lay in the offing. On December 13 the Board of War created an inspection system to curb desertions, ensure efficient use of public property, and institute army drills. It named none other than Thomas Conway as inspector general and, directly flouting Washington’s plea, boosted his rank to major general. Not only was Conway vested with sweeping powers, he would be exempt from Washington’s immediate supervision. It was hard to imagine a more calculated insult against the commander in chief. Washington didn’t learn of the decision until two weeks later, when Conway materialized at Valley Forge to announce his appointment. Although we don’t know his exact words, Washington was always articulate when forced to break silence on a painful subject. To Conway’s consternation, he received him with what he later called “ceremonious civility,” an icy correctness that people found very unsettling. Not mincing words, he told Conway that his appointment would outrage more senior brigadiers in the army and that Conway couldn’t inspect anything until he had explicit instructions from Congress. Conway protested that he was “coolly received” at Valley Forge and complained to Washington of being greeted in such a manner “as I never met with before from any general during the course of thirty years in a very respectable army.”47 Washington dug in his heels in self-defense: “That I did not receive him in the language of a warm and cordial friend, I readily confess the charge,” he told Henry Laurens, who was now president of Congress. “I did not, nor shall I ever, till I am capable of the arts of dissimulation.”48
Conway had never really responded to Washington about the notorious note written to Gates. Amid his frigid reception at Valley Forge, he sent Washington an insolent letter that flaunted his true colors. “I understand that your aversion to me is owing to the letter I wrote to General Gates,” Conway began. He then said that subalterns in European armies freely gave their opinions of their generals, “but I never heard that the least notice was taken of these letters. Must such an odious and tyrannical inquisition begin in this country?” In conclusion, Conway said that “since you cannot bear the sight of me in your camp, I am very ready to go wherever Congress thinks proper and even to France.”49 The normally self-contained Washington was so infuriated by Conway’s conduct that John Laurens thought that in private life Washington might have contemplated a duel. “It is such an affront,” young Laurens told his father, “as Conway would never have dared to offer if the general’s situation had not assured him of the impossibility of its being revenged in a private way.”50 Laurens was mistaken in one thing: Washington considered dueling an outmoded form of chivalry. In the end the Board of War desisted from trying to impose Conway on Washington, and he was assigned to join General McDougall in New York.
The various efforts of Gates, Conway, Mifflin, et al. to discredit and even depose Washington have been known to history as the Conway Cabal. Cabal is much too strong a word for this loosely organized network of foes. In later years Washington confirmed that he thought an “attempt was made by a party in Congress to supplant me in that command,” and he sketched out its contours thus: “It appeared, in general, that General Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation and influence . . . General Mifflin, it is commonly supposed, bore the second part in the cabal, and General Conway, I know, was a very active and malignant partisan. But I have good reasons to believe that their machinations have recoiled most sensibly upon themselves.”51 The episode showed that, whatever Washington’s demerits as a military man, he was a consummate political infighter. With command of his tongue and temper, he had the supreme temperament for leadership compared to his scheming rivals. It was perhaps less his military skills than his character that eclipsed all competitors. Washington was dignified, circumspect, and upright, whereas his enemies seemed petty and skulking. However thin-skinned he was, he never doubted the need for legitimate criticism and contested only the devious methods of opponents. Calling criticism of error “the prerogative of freemen,” he still deplored such a “secret, insidious attempt . . . to wound my reputation!”52 For the rest of the war, he didn’t allow these things to cloud his judgment, never told tales indiscreetly, and confined his opinions of intramural feuding to a small circle of trusted intimates, lest such infighting demoralize his army.
At moments Washington viewed the controversy with philosophic resignation and wondered whether he should return to Mount Vernon. After receiving a confidential warning from the Reverend William Gordon that a faction was plotting to install Charles Lee in his stead, Washington replied ruefully: “So soon then as the public gets dissatisfied with my services, or a person is found better qualified to answer her expectation, I shall quit the helm with as much satisfaction and retire to a private station with as much content as ever the wearied pilgrim felt upon his safe arrival in the Holy Land.”53 He didn’t need to worry. The so-called Conway Cabal taught people that Washington was tough and crafty in defending his terrain and that they tangled with him at their peril. Henceforth anyone who underestimated George Washington lived to regret the error. His skillful treatment of the “cabal” silenced his harshest critics, leaving him in unquestioned command of the Continental Army. The end of this war among Washington’s generals augured well for the larger war against the British.
It should be said that the need to solidify Washington’s position and humble his enemies had a political logic. With the possible exception of the Continental Congress, the Continental Army was the purest expression of the new, still inchoate country, a working laboratory for melding together citizen-soldiers from various states and creating a composite American identity. Washington personified that army and was therefore the main unifying figure in the war. John Adams regarded this as the main reason why people tolerated his defeats and overlooked his errors. To Dr. Benjamin Rush, he later pontificated: “There was a time when northern, middle, and southern statesmen . . . expressly agreed to blow the trumpet of panegyric in concert to cover and dissemble all faults and errors; to represent every defeat as a victory and every retreat as an advancement to make that character [Washington] popular and fashionable with all parties in all places and with all persons, as a center of union, as the central stone in the geometrical arch. There you have the revelation of the whole mystery.”54
In the last analysis, Washington’s triumph over the troublesome Gates, Mifflin, and Conway was total. For unity’s sake, he was unfailingly polite to Gates: “I made a point of treating Gen[era]l Gates with all the attention and cordiality in my power, as well from a sincere desire of harmony as from an unwillingness to give any cause of triumph to our enemies.”55 Gates’s defects as a general would become glaring in time. Thomas Mifflin resigned as quartermaster general amid charges of mismanagement. The most complete triumph came over Thomas Conway, who plied Congress with so many abusive letters and threatened to resign so often that delegates were finally pleased to accept his resignation in April 1778. Conway refused to muzzle his criticism of Washington, however, which led him in July into a duel with John Cadwalader, a stalwart Washington defender. Cadwalader shot Conway in the mouth and neck and is supposed to have boasted as he stared down at his bleeding foe, “I have stopped the damned rascal’s lying anyway.”56 With incredible resilience, Conway recuperated from these wounds and sent Washington a chastened note before he returned to France. “I find myself just able to hold the pen during a few minutes,” the convalescent soldier wrote, “and take this opportunity of expressing my sincere grief for having done, written, or said anything disagreeable to Your Excellency. My career will soon be over. Therefore justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You are, in my eyes, the great and the good man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and esteem of these states whose liberties you have asserted by your virtues.”57
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Dreary Kind of Place
IN D
ECEMBER 1777 General William Howe eased into comfortable winter quarters in Philadelphia. For British officers in the eighteenth century, warfare remained a seasonal business, and they saw no reason to sacrifice unduly as cold winds blew. “Assemblies, concerts, comedies, clubs, and the like make us forget that there is any war, save that it is a capital joke,” wrote a Hessian captain, reflecting the overly confident attitude that prevailed among British and Hessian officers after the Brandywine and Germantown victories.1
George Washington struggled with the baffling question of where to house his vagabond, threadbare army during the frigid months ahead. The specter of a harsh winter was alarming: four thousand men lacked a single blanket. If Washington withdrew farther into Pennsylvania’s interior, his army might be secure, but the area already teemed with patriotic refugees from Philadelphia. Such a move would also allow Howe’s men to scavenge the countryside outside Philadelphia and batten freely off local farms. Further complicating his decision was that he had to ensure the safety of two homeless legislatures, now stranded in exile: the Continental Congress in York and the Pennsylvania legislature in Lancaster. “I assure you, sir,” he told Henry Laurens, as he puzzled over the conundrum, “no circumstance in the course of the present contest, or in my whole life, has employed more of my reflection . . . than in what manner . . . to dispose of the army during the winter.”2
