by Logan Beirne
In his chaotic, ill-timed, ill-managed retreat, Washington had lost New York and many of his troops along with the city. It was starting to become clear to everyone that congressional meddling was not helping the cause. Americans needed a decisive military leader if they were going to stand a chance against the world’s greatest military power.
But Washington would have to wait. As he watched helplessly from across the Hudson River, the last American stronghold on Manhattan, Fort Washington, fell to the combined Hessian and British force. The commander witnessed his troops fight bravely, only to be overrun. Even more heart-wrenching, many of those who surrendered were brutally slaughtered by the slashing Hessians.42 Washington was reported to turn away from his officers and cry “with the tenderness of a child.”43 This was perhaps the lowest point in his life. He had failed his nation. He feared that the Revolution was lost. And it nearly was.
16
The Times That Try Men’s Souls
By the fall of 1776, the commander had nearly run out of troops to command. Devastated by losses and desertions, Washington’s force was slashed to just a couple thousand men. While he had commanded about 20,000 men prior to the British invasions of Brooklyn and New York, he now led a mere 3,500. His army was vastly outnumbered. To compound matters, more American Loyalists were joining the British side than there were patriots joining Washington. The states refused to send Washington more troops since they wanted to keep their men close to home for their own defense rather than send them away to another defeat.1 Congress was impotent. In fact, Congress would not—and could not—even give Washington money to pay his men.
The army had many directors but little coherent direction. Washington had bent to the political pressure in defending New York and it had led to disaster. This was no way to fight a war. With Congress attempting to micromanage Washington’s every move, the American war machine was less a machine than a schizophrenic squirrel that jumped from one task to another without coordination.
Washington recomposed himself and resolved to find a way to salvage the American cause. While the valiant general’s propensity was to stand his ground and “fight like a man,” he knew he could not win in New York. Honor gave way to reason, and Washington took the advice of his officers: the only way to give the Revolution a chance was to flee with his disintegrating army into New Jersey.
He was now on the run—and he loathed every minute of it. His confidence fading as quickly as his troops, Washington fled through the cold, muddy streets of New Jersey during the miserable autumn of 1776. They were chased by a seemingly unstoppable British and Hessian force, which ravaged the countryside as it pursued. “Indiscriminate ruin” and “horrid depredations” fell upon “every person they met with, infants, children, old men and women.”2 Rape was reportedly commonplace. In one account, a young girl “was taken from her father’s house, carried to a barn about a mile, there ravished, and afterwards made use of by five more of these brutes.” In another, a man’s wife and ten-year-old daughter were likewise brutalized.3 The advancing British and Hessians were seen as a demonic horde that the American commander was powerless to stop.
All Washington could do was flee. The American army retreated all the way across the state, finding a slight reprieve once they had crossed the Delaware River, whose flowing waters finally halted the destructive British advance. But with the world’s mightiest navy at General Howe’s disposal, this river provided Washington only temporary protection—the British could readily continue the chase. And with the weather unseasonably warm that December, the British appeared ready to do precisely that.
But before he squashed Washington’s tattered force, Howe bizarrely ordered his troops to halt. As usual, he was in no hurry. Still holding out hope of reconciliation between Britain and its colonies, Howe felt no need to crush Washington’s army—only to intimidate them.4 So he stationed three Hessian regiments to harass Washington from across the river, where they taunted their prey with intermittent bouts of artillery fire. While their presence was unnerving, these Hessians were little immediate threat. Howe had decided it was winter.
A hard frost had arrived just in time to cool Howe’s pursuit. As was custom during the era, the British forces would hunker down for the winter of 1776–1777. Rather than remain in the field and endure the ravages of the cold, gentlemanly armies instead withdrew from battle until spring.5 Accordingly, leaving the Hessians in New Jersey, Howe and the bulk of his men returned to their winter quarters in their new prize: New York City. Although he should have chased Washington and crushed him with the full might of the British forces, Howe preferred to retire to his elegant New York City mansion, where he “lay warm in bed with Mrs. Loring.”6
An attractive blonde in her mid-twenties, Elizabeth Loring was married to a Loyalist named Joshua Loring. She interpreted her marriage vows loosely, however, as did her husband. Joshua served in Howe’s staff and seemed unperturbed by his wife’s rather public dalliance with his boss. In fact, he acted more like her pimp than her husband as he gladly accepted generous military payments in exchange for permitting this not-so-secret affair.7 “He fingered the cash, the General enjoyed Madam,” quipped one Loyalist.8
Howe did indeed enjoy this arrangement immensely. Although he had a wife back in England, he was emboldened by the expanse of the Atlantic and openly pursued his adulterous infatuation.9 He had “found his Cleopatra in an illustrious courtesan” and indulged in her along with plentiful helpings of rum.10 Together they gambled, danced, and drank into the nights. They lived in a three-story Turtle Bay estate boasting views of the East River and fashionable decor imported from England.11 Howe had quite the love shack. Charles Lee, never one to mince his words, crudely summed up the British general: “Howe shut his eyes, fought his battles, drank his bottle, had his little whore.”12
Meanwhile, American Loyalists criticized Mrs. Loring as a distraction. They wanted Howe to end the war and they despised his mistress for diverting his attention from the effort. The Loyalists sang:Awake, arouse, Sir Billy,
There’s forage on the plain.
Ah, leave your little filly,
And open the campaign. 13
But Billy slept. And in a way, that “courtesan” helped save the Continental Army, as Howe’s dalliance provided Washington with time to lick his wounds.
The United States were at rock bottom. The Revolution had turned into a disaster and the fight for liberty seemed lost. “Trembling for the fate of America,” Washington feared that Howe might seize Philadelphia, where he would surely hang any congressman he caught. 14 And, to his shame, his own army was in no position to stop another Howe onslaught. In fact, without coats to warm them or even shoes to protect their feet, Washington’s battered and decaying army struggled just to survive the elements. Thomas Paine, the so-called mouthpiece of the Revolution whose patriotic pamphlets helped to rouse public opinion, famously wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”15
In suffering solidarity, Washington rode on horseback alongside his withering troops as they retreated that miserable autumn of 1776. Although he hid his anxiety behind the strong face that he presented to his men, Washington privately confided, “I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born. . . . I am wearied to Death.”16 He predicted, “I think the game is pretty near up.”17
The commander was not the only one distraught over the American army’s poor performance. As people looked for someone to blame for the crushing defeats in New York, General Washington stood out as the most obvious responsible party. Some of his own officers quietly questioned his competency as a military commander.
Eager for Washington’s job, the conniving General Lee was quick to impugn Washington for America’s defeats. Going behind his commander’s back, Lee tattled to Washington’s bosses in Congress about Washington’s “fatal indecision of mind,” calling it “a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage. ”18 Not one for self-restraint, Lee did not s
top there. He also wrote to another officer, “Entre nous, a certain great man is most damnably deficient. He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties.” 19 With Lee’s name on the short list of contenders, whispers about replacing Washington crept through the country.
Even as a growing chorus was questioning his capability, Washington retained the ardent loyalty of his troops and the majority in Congress. Although their confidence in the cause was wavering, his troops still believed in him and held out hope for victory. By behaving so heroically yet humbly during the first phases of the war, Washington had built up a deep reservoir of goodwill. And he needed every last drop.
“My neck does not feel as though it was made for a halter [noose],” Washington declared .20 His persistence was unsinkable. He was determined to outlast the British and knew it would require decisive action. And so he began to voice his exasperation with Congress’s cluelessness —although in his typical polite and subtle manner. “Give me leave to say . . . our Affairs are in a more unpromising way than you seem to apprehend,” he told Congress. The Continental Army, he warned, “is upon the eve of its political dissolution.”21 The simmering tension between the commander and Congress began to bubble.
Washington went further, expressing some frustration with his own lack of power. Unable even to create a permanent army since it was seen as a stepping stone to tyranny, he was forced to plead with his freezing, starving, unpaid soldiers to reenlist time and again. Under this arrangement, he risked losing most of the remnants of his army when their terms expired at the end of the year. The longer they delayed in raising a standing army, he warned Congress, “the more difficult and chargeable would they find it to get one.”22 Although the commander’s neck was not fit for a noose, it certainly sported a figurative leash that was beginning to chafe. Then a funny thing happened.
17
Reevaluation
Whether it was desperation that brought clarity or panic that brought action, Congress decided to remove the leash it had kept around Washington’s neck.
With Howe able to seize Philadelphia at just about any time he wished, the elegant Independence Hall was no longer the safe haven it had been. Unbeknownst to Congress, Howe had actually made no preparations to invade Philadelphia that winter of 1776–1777. He was, after all, content to enjoy his winter quarters in Manhattan, partying with Mrs. Loring.1 But the proximity of the British forces “seized the nerves of some members of Congress.”2 And when a local newspaper announced good intelligence that the British intended to push for Philadelphia, “much alarm” spread throughout the city.3 With “massacre and starvation chill[ing] the blood in every vein,” there was panic all around: “Where shall we go; how shall we get out of town? Was the universal cry.”4 The national government was paralyzed.
If captured by the British, the members of the Continental Congress would surely be hanged as traitors. So they began to scatter: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson returned to their homes, while Franklin was off lobbying the French for more assistance. In fact, so many congressmen were absent, on account of flight or illness or sheer exhaustion, that there were often not enough members for a quorum. The bold Continental Congress that had issued the Declaration of Independence only months earlier was now just a nervous shadow of itself, as the last holdouts anxiously milled within Independence Hall.
This rump Congress became more erratic. They ordered Washington to publicly refute the “false and malicious” report that they were about to flee Philadelphia.5 Washington, however, realized that his controlling mother was acting a bit batty and thus disobeyed. He politely responded that following Congress’s order would “not lead to any good end” and that he would “take the liberty to decline.” As if already asserting his growing power as commander, he instead recommended that Congress would be wise to evacuate.6 Little did Washington know, they already had.
Congress resolved to reconvene in Baltimore, approximately one hundred miles farther from Howe’s men. The fact that they transferred to this backwater was itself another sign of desperation. At the time, Baltimore was a rough, dirty boomtown that was known more as a smelly haven for pirates than as a political center. The intellectual John Adams was appalled by what he described as the population’s crude quest for profit by any means. Another delegate described Baltimore as “the damnedest hole on earth.”7 But the brutal realities of war had morphed from a far-off, virtuous battle for liberty in Boston and New York, into a very real and very near threat.
Fearing for their own lives, as well as for the American cause, the congressmen realized that their experiment with a weak commander had failed. The limits placed on Washington’s control over his own army’s tactics were hampering the war effort and endangering Congress itself. It had become painfully obvious that they needed their commander to protect them.
They had jealously clung to power and nervously watched Washington’s every move, but now Congress changed course. The attempt to conduct the war by congressional committee—rather than granting full military authority to the commander—had reduced the civilian leadership to this desperate state. And so, while in flight to Baltimore, Congress temporarily ceded its military authority to Washington.
In a groundbreaking resolution, the congressmen voted that “General Washington be possessed of full power to order and direct all things relative to the department, and to the operations of war,” until they reconvened a week later.8 Finally, the commander in chief had full command of his own army, if only for a brief time. With this resolution, Congress threw out the mold for a weak American commander and launched their first experiment with an empowered one. Even though they gave him only a week, Congress had basically unleashed Washington for a run around the yard. They would never get him back on that tight leash again.
Washington’s tone shifted in his writings to the states and Congress. 9 In a circular he wrote to the neighboring states about his shortage of weaponry, his tenor was less suppliant, more commanding. Previously he had pleaded for supplies, but now he insisted, “proper Steps should be immediately taken in your State to Collect all that can be purchased from private People.” He reminded the states to make sure they obtained quality equipment rather than “light trash Arms” as he had received before.10 Left to their own devices, the states had imperiled his army with deficient supplies, so Washington grew more forceful. The emboldened leader next turned to Congress.
Washington had beseeched Congress for more troops and supplies for months, and by December 20, 1776, he had had enough of begging. “I have waited with much Impatience to know the determinations of Congress on the Propositions made some time in October last for augmenting our Corps of Artillery and establishing a Corps of Engineers,” he wrote in one of his longest letters to Congress, adding that further delay would cause “greatest injury to the safety of these states.”11 These were strong words for a southern gentleman.
Washington would wait no more. Exercising his new power, he ordered that three artillery battalions be recruited, since cannon, mortars, and howitzers had been proving decisive in battle. While the Americans were mostly firing little musket balls and missing their targets more often than hitting them, the British were tearing holes in the patriot lines with artillery fire. Aim mattered little when you sent large balls of lead hurling towards your foe. Raising battalions had been Congress’s prerogative and they had bungled it, leaving the army lacking. 12 But now, Washington could take such matters into his own hands.
He even went further and started to spend Congress’s money. Without consulting the politicians, Washington promised pay raises to certain regiments. He wrote that such an unprecedented measure “may appear to Congress premature, and unwarrantable; but . . . the Execution could not be delayed till after their Meeting at Baltimore.”13 And he was not done tugging on Congress’s purse strings. Determining that he desperately needed even more cannon in particular, Washington took it upon himself to order that they be cast.14 Rather than ask Congress, he wo
uld see to it himself and inform Congress of his actions afterward.
The American commander in chief was becoming a bold one. Washington admitted, “I am going a good deal out of the line of my duty to adopt these Measures, or advise thus freely,” but said that necessity required it. “The Enemy are daily gathering strength from the disaffected [Americans who joined their cause]; this strength like a Snow ball by rolling, will Increase.”15 And so Washington seized the chance to act. He wrote to Congress, “It may be said that this is an application for powers that are too dangerous to be Intrusted. I can only add that desperate diseases require desperate Remedies; and with truth declare, that I have no lust after power . . . .”16 The commander had to assert his authority if America was going to stand a chance. So he did.
Washington even began to criticize Congress’s command structure. Its labyrinth of committees had attempted—largely ineffectually—to micromanage the war. He criticized the actions of “Committees without any kind of Controul,” and singled out the committee that oversaw prisoner exchange. Prisoners were being handled in an embarrassingly disorganized fashion; some even wandered around without any one person policing their whereabouts. And Washington blamed Congress’s setup, in which the commanding officer was “obliged to attend to the business of so many different departments as to render it impossible to conduct that of his own with the attention necessary.” Revealing his frustration, he added, “nothing can be more Injurious.”17 In contrast to his timidity in the beginning of the war, Washington was now ready to take control from Congress and work to fix such inefficiencies. It had become painfully clear that the politicians would not do so on their own.
When it came time for Congress to rescind Washington’s temporary war powers just days after they had bestowed them, the delegates reconsidered. It was at this opportune time that Washington’s officer and confidant, Nathanael Greene, made a direct appeal to Congress on his commander’s behalf.
