Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  He waited while the picket stepped inside the building, and three minutes later was standing across the desk from General Washington, the sealed oil packet in his hand.

  “Sir, I’m Daniel Yarbrough, scout with the Continental Army at Philadelphia, under orders to deliver this to you.” He laid the packet on the desk.

  Washington glanced at the packet, then back at the boy, puzzled by his buckskin shirt and breeches and moccasins.

  “A scout? When did you leave Philadelphia?”

  “Yesterday about this time.”

  Washington’s eyes narrowed. “You rode all night? What’s this about?”

  “Well, sir, it’s all in them letters. But if you’re askin’ me to report, I can tell you there was a whole company of militia from Lancaster come marchin’ in yesterday, and they talked about two hunnerd militia into joinin’ ’em, an’ they surrounded the state house. Held Congress and the Executive Council prisoner for a while. Then they went down and took over the city powder magazine, an’ that’s when someone from Congress got holt of me and sent me here with them letters. It’s all there, sir.”

  Washington came to his feet, leaned forward on stiff arms, palms flat on his desk. “Am I to understand that some United States soldiers held Congress hostage?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what you’re to understand. Uh . . . beggin’ the General’s pardon, sir.”

  “When did you last eat or sleep?”

  “Yesterday before I left. But it’s the horse needs tendin’, sir, not me. Come over a hunnerd miles. Four rivers. Needs about a gallon of oats and some hay.”

  Washington sat down abruptly, deftly wrote four lines on a piece of paper, dropped his quill, and handed the folded paper to Danny.

  “Take that to my secretary. He will direct you where to get food and rest for yourself and your mount.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are dismissed.”

  Danny walked out the door as Washington broke the seal and drew out the first of the papers. His face hardened as he read. When he finished, he slammed his open palm down on his desk and rasped out, “Infamous! Outrageous!” He did not leave his desk until the Hudson Valley was locked in deep dusk, and he was back at his desk before the morning drum banged out reveille. By seven o’clock a messenger was running through camp with a written order to be delivered to General Robert Howe. By eight o’clock, Howe was standing before Washington’s desk, bewildered, waiting for some explanation of the emergency that required his appearance before morning mess.Washington wasted no time.

  “There was a general mutiny by some Pennsylvania militia at Lancaster. Yesterday they marched on Philadelphia and joined with a large segment of militia to surround the state house where they hold Congress and the Pennsylvania Executive Council hostage until their demands are met. They are after full pay and other compensation, which neither Congress nor Pennsylvania can provide. The Executive Council could not force them to disperse.”

  Howe gaped.

  “At the earliest moment possible, you will lead fifteen hundred troops, fully armed, to Philadelphia, where you will take all steps you deem necessary to put down this mutiny, including the force of arms or hanging those responsible.”

  Howe stood white-faced, speechless, and Washington concluded.

  “The mutineers have seized the Philadelphia powder magazine. Congress has resolved to abandon Philadelphia and resume session in Princeton.”

  Howe stammered, “Unbelievable, sir.”

  “If we do not act swiftly and decisively, it could bring down the United States. Send me daily dispatches until this matter is resolved. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The following morning Washington parted the curtain of the front window of his headquarters to watch General Robert Howe lead his column out, with their supply wagons and four cannon bringing up the rear in the heat and dust. For three days the dispatches arrived with no news other than the miles covered, and the standard sick call for each day. On the fourth day, Washington sat down at his desk and concentrated on the three pages written by General Howe.

  In a shameful withdrawal, amid humiliating catcalls and obscenities shouted by the throng of mutineers, Congress had wound through the streets of Philadelphia in an unprecedented exodus to the city of Princeton, where they resumed their business in Nassau Hall.

  With little reason to remain in Philadelphia, the mutineers had withdrawn, to return to their barracks in Philadelphia and to their camp in Lancaster. The all-important list of officers they wanted to present their claims before Congress was never delivered.

  On July fourth, 1783, the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a second written message arrived on Washington’s desk.

  It was over.

  A mix of relief and apprehension flooded through Washington. An episode fraught with catastrophic potential had been averted, true enough, but that was vastly overshadowed by a deeper question. Was this the end of a thing that could shatter the United States, or the beginning?

  Perplexed, Washington shook his head. How does one lead good, brave men through the gall of battle for eight years, only to find it necessary to confront them with the force of arms to save what they had so valiantly fought to obtain? How?

  He sat down at his desk and opened a drawer to withdraw a document he and his staff had labored over. It was the last and most important of a brief series of writings that most had begun to call his “Circulars to the States.” This last document had been printed and circulated to the army and the thirteen states just days earlier, and had instantly been referred to as “Washington’s Legacy.”

  Slowly, thoughtfully, silently, he read it.

  “ . . . There are four things which I humbly conceive are essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an independent power:

  1st. An indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal Head.

  2nd. A sacred regard to public justice.

  3rdly. The adoption of a proper peace establishment, and

  4thly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.”

  There was a deep sadness in his eyes as he dropped his head forward to stare blankly at the desktop.

  What more could I have said—or done—to make this country see what is so plain if only they will clear their vision of all divisiveness? Our own military, holding Congress hostage! Pennsylvania unable to control its own militia. Making impossible demands. No end to it. When will they see?

  He replaced the document in his drawer and by the power of his will forced himself to survey the never-ending stack of papers that enslaved him, ruled his world. Battles could be measured by the time between the first shot and the last one, but not so the paperwork needed to run an army. No one could remember when the paperwork started, and everyone understood it would never cease. Each day brought its own unrelenting load, and the worst nightmare known to a commander was the chaos that buried him like an avalanche if he failed to handle it.

  Weariness lined his face as he sighed and reached for the first document. He was composing an answer to a dispute over a supply contract when an unexpected knock brought his head up.

  “Enter.”

  His personal secretary, Major Thaddeus Shaffer, tall, soft-spoken, stoop-shouldered, stepped into the room.

  “You wished something?” Washington asked.

  “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt. This message just arrived from Robert Morris. It is marked ‘Urgent.’”

  Washington tensed and laid down his quill as Shaffer laid the document on his desk.

  “Is there anything else?” Washington asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “You are dismi
ssed, but be available on a moment’s notice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Washington seized the document, broke the seal, and read it twice to be certain of its content. Then he called, “Mr. Secretary!”

  The door opened instantly and Shaffer entered to stand at attention.

  “Mr. Morris will arrive here within the hour. With him is a man by the name of Haym Salomon. See to it refreshment is available, and once he is here, I am not to be interrupted except for dire emergency.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Robert Morris was the wealthiest man in the United States and considered by most to be the most powerful, gifted merchant on the continent—a financial genius. Ambitious, confident to a fault, bold in taking risk, nerves of steel, no respecter of persons, Morris had connections with every leading merchant in America and abroad. Kings and monarchs knew Robert Morris. Banks around the world were eager for his business. When the United States found itself bankrupt and plunging into the black abyss of unending debt in 1781, Washington had turned to him for salvation, and Morris had responded. Congress abandoned its three-man financial committee, created the office of Superintendent of Finance to replace it, and appointed Morris to be the first Superintendent, with a clear ultimatum: unscramble the mess.

  In record time he established the drastically underfunded Bank of North America, commenced the issue of Continental paper dollars with too little gold to support them, demanded the states pay their own soldiers, hammered on French and Dutch banks until he obtained large loans to maintain solvency in the newly formed bank, threw out the system of army regimental commissaries with all the corruption it had spawned, instituted the contract system for supplying the army, and with a series of bookkeeping entries that baffled even the most experienced merchants, raised enough money to pay for the battle of Yorktown and essentially end the war.

  It took him just weeks to identify the root of the problem. The United States Congress did not have the power to raise revenue! It could levy no taxes! The national government could only request funding from the States, beg them if necessary, and if the States could not or would not deliver, the national treasury emptied in a matter of days, sometimes hours. In 1782, furious creditors from major cities all over America proposed a mass meeting in either New York or Albany to create a uniform plan that would force Congress to pay their long overdue contract claims.

  Morris was incensed. How, he reasoned, can the government continue to make promises to pay the army, and contractors, without the commensurate power to obtain the money? He attacked Congress with the simple truth of it, arguing loudly that since Congress was charged with the responsibility of maintaining an army, it had the inherent power to levy taxes to do it. A desperate Congress agreed. A law imposing an impost tax of five percent on goods imported into the country was passed, and while the ink was still wet on the parchment it was hastened to the thirteen states for their approval, since the Articles of Confederation required that all such laws passed by Congress must receive unanimous state approval. Twelve states approved instantly, Rhode Island alone rejecting it. The single rejection doomed the tax measure, and with it, any hope of rescuing the United States from the havoc of financial ruin.

  Morris was furious at the idiocy he was seeing in the politicians. They had mandated him to rescue the United States from bankruptcy, then denied him the single tool needed to do it. Livid, he resigned.

  The politicians? They threw up their hands in supplication, begging him to remain in office until a successor could be appointed, knowing it was impossible to replace Robert Morris. Reluctantly he stayed, declaring the entire time that it was futile.

  In the midst of the desperate chaos, George Washington received reports of a second man whose financial wizardry and impeccable credentials were legendary in the world of international business. Haym Salomon. Born of Jewish parents in Lissa, Poland, in 1740, Salomon had early demonstrated an affinity for business and accumulating wealth. When mobs rose against the Jews in Poland and burned the town of Lissa in 1767, he emigrated to America, only to discover that traces of the same mindless prejudice existed in his new country. He joined the Sons of Liberty, a shadowy New York group dedicated to opposing the British, and was twice arrested and imprisoned by the British for aiding the American cause. By disguise and clever artifice he escaped and fled, leaving behind his wife and six children and six thousand pounds British sterling. The moment he could he rescued his wife and children and continued in his lucrative business as a merchant, serving the American cause. Small, slender, quiet, master of seven languages, including English and his native Yiddish, he slowly built a reputation that spread throughout the states and all major foreign ports and banks. Steadily his accounts swelled with wealth. News of his abilities and commitment to America reached George Washington, who immediately importuned Robert Morris: get Haym Salomon.

  Reluctantly, the independent, opinionated Morris invited Salomon to a private meeting. Commitments were made. Salomon threw his genius and entire fortune into the effort to fund the great revolution, and time and again provided the gold that Robert Morris needed when the crises came. It was the robust Robert Morris who became known as the Financier of the Revolution, but it was the quiet, steady, gentle Haym Salomon who propped him up when he faltered.

  Seated behind his desk, hunched forward, deep in frustration over the myriad written angry demands and complaints from creditors and unpaid American officers, Washington started at the knock on his door.

  “Enter.”

  Thaddeus Shaffer opened the door, hawkish face a mask of intensity. “Sir, Misters Morris and Salomon have arrived.”

  Washington laid down his quill and straightened in his chair. “Show them in.”

  Washington rose as Morris entered, husky, round-faced, charismatic. He was followed by Salomon, small, slender, hunched, unobtrusive, sallow-faced, breath rattling from illness. The near total difference between the two men was striking. Washington had never seen Salomon until that moment, and he covertly studied the man, gathering his first impression.

  Typical of his tendency to dominate, Morris marched to the desk, thrust out his hand, and spoke first.

  “General, it is good of you to receive us on such short notice.”

  Washington reached to shake his hand, then that of Salomon, and spoke to Morris. “Not at all. It is good to see you again, Mr. Morris.” He turned to Salomon. “It is my great pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Salomon. Won’t you be seated?”

  The simple pine chairs creaked as they took their seats.

  Washington abided the usual formalities. “Would you care for some refreshment? My secretary has arranged for it.”

  Morris shook his head. “Thank you, we shall not be here that long.”

  Washington dropped his eyes for a moment, then went on. “I received your message, marked urgent. Is there something pressing?”

  Instantly Morris focused, became animated. “There is. It has to do with that business in Philadelphia. Holding Congress hostage.”

  “Disgraceful. I understood it is concluded.”

  Morris shook his head vigorously. “It isn’t concluded. Oh, it’s true enough that the mutinous soldiers have gone away and that Congress is safe in Princeton. But that in no way is a conclusion to it.”

  Washington spread his palms on his desk. “What are you telling me?”

  Morris leaned forward, eyes flashing, words tumbling. “Let’s put the Lancaster-Philadelphia disaster in context. To do that I have to go back.”

  He cleared his throat and for a moment ordered his thoughts.

  “You recall I used loans from France and Holland to support the Bank of North America.”

  “I recall.”

  “$1,272,842 went to the Confederation government in loans to keep the army supplied during the war. To support that, I issued notes. In the banking world they were called Morris Notes, or Morris Warrants. They were issued over my signature and backed by my reputation, and they directed the Treasu
rer of the United States to pay them when due, in gold. Those notes were circulated in the business world, and eventually fell due. I went to Congress and warned them they had to be paid. I pled with Congress to impose poll taxes, land taxes, liquor taxes—any number of ways to raise the money to pay the notes.”

  Washington’s face was a blank mask as he listened, tracking.

  “Congress failed. They finally sent out a plea to the separate states to raise eight million dollars to pay the notes. They got four hundred thousand, some $7,600,000 short. The entire financing structure collapsed.”

  Morris straightened in his chair and continued, voice rising with emotion.

  “I scarcely need to remind you of the deplorable condition of this army during the war years.”

  Washington nodded.

  “No food. No gunpowder. No salt. No blankets. Men freezing to death. Starving. Do you remember your estimates of how much flour and how much meat this army required each year?”

  “I do.”

  “One hundred thousand barrels of flour. Twenty million pounds of meat. In one winter, 1,500 horses died simply because the army could not find fodder! And the men ate half the dead horses!”

  Morris fell silent, and Washington slowly leaned back, while visions of scarecrow men, standing barefoot in the snow, eating tree bark, passed before his eyes—the wagon that passed through camp at Valley Forge each morning, collecting the frozen bodies of those who died overnight of exposure, starvation, sickness—three thousand of them in five months—a sergeant appearing before him in rags, pleading for flour the army did not have to feed his men who had not eaten for eight days in the dead of winter.