Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency
Page 35
4 Peter Oliver, Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1961), 123.
5 Washington to Sir William Howe, September 23, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:378.
6 Ibid.
7 “Chinese Torture,” Medieval Torture, Medieval-Castles.org. Also, see George Henry Mason, The Punishments of China (London: Printed for W. Miller by S. Gosnell, 1808); Lu Xixing, Zhongguo gu dai qi wu da ci dian: bing qi, xing ju juan, (Shijiazhuang Shi: Hebei jiao yu chu ban she, 2004).
8 Washington to Howe, September 23, 1776.
9 William R. Wilson, “The Sword to Settle,” in Historical Narratives of Early Canada, http://www.uppercanadahistory.ca/uel/uel5.html.
10 Washington to Howe, September 23, 1776.
11 Angela E. M. Files, Loyalist Families of the Grand River Branch U.E.L.A.C., United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada (1991).
12 Indeed, on many occasions, especially in the beginning of the war and when the torture served no purpose, Washington forbade torture; see Washington to Hancock, August 29, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:155–56 (discussing a plan to convert the Hessians by treating those captured kindly); however, in other instances, such as when torture could be used to better the treatment of American prisoners, he does suggest torture to be an abhorrent, yet viable, option.
13 Anburey, Travels Through the Interior Parts of America, 2:62, also qtd. in Robert C. Doyle, The Enemy in Our Hands: America’s Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War, from the Revolution to the War on Terror (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 26.
14 Letters of Brunswick and Hessian Officers during the American Revolution, transl. William Leete Stone (1891), 163.
15 Ibid.
16 Anburey, Travels Through the Interior Parts of America, 2:55.
17 Doyle, The Enemy in Our Hands, 26.
18 “Rivington’s Reflections,” Royal Gazette of New York, December 14, 1782.
19 This was the intrepid John Paul Jones.
20 Washington Irving, History of the American Revolution (1876), 619.
21 Ibid., 618.
22 “Toms River Blockhouse Fight,” Patriot Pirates, www.patriotpirates.com.
23 Frank Landon Humphreys, Life and Times of David Humphreys: soldier–statesman—poet—“Belov’d of Washington” (1917), 1:252.
24 Irving, Life of George Washington, 4:364.
25 Washington to Sir Henry Clinton, April 21, 1782, in The Writings of George Washington, 24:146.
26 Ibid., 147.
27 The Lost War: Letters from British Officers during the American Revolution, ed. Marion Balderston and David Syrett (New York: Horizon, 1975), 216.
28 Ibid.
29 Francis Bazley Lee, New Jersey as a Colony and as a State: One of the Original Thirteen (1902), 251.
30 The Lost War, ed. Balderston and Syrett, 216.
31 Irving, Life of George Washington, 4:394–97.
32 James Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution, 304.
33 Friedrich Melchior Freiherr von Grimm et al., Historical and Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes, selected from the Correspondence of Baron de Grimm and Diderot (1815), qtd. in Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution, 308.
34 Thacher, Military Journal, 306.
35 Ibid., 308.
36 Ibid.
37 Von Grimm et al., Historical and Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes, qtd. by Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution , 40.
38 Journal of Colonel Elias Boudinot, as qtd. in Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution (New York: Ecco, 2006), 143.
Part III: Dictator of America
1 Ironically, the statue is positioned with its left foot forward.
Chapter 13: Scorpion on a Leash
1 Washington to Lund Washington, October 6, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:494.
2 John R. Bumgarner, The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician’s Point of View (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1994), 9.
3 Brian P. Janiskee, Local Government in Early America: The Colonial Experience and Lessons from the Founders (Lanham, Md., Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 94. Adams oscillated from aggressive to puritanical as his inborn temperament vied with his puritanical upbringing for control.
4 John Adams to Horatio Gates, June 18, 1776, in Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, ed. Edmund C. Burnett (Washington, D.C., 1921–36), 1:497.
5 Resolution of the Continental Congress, June 16, 1775.
6 Qtd. in Don Higginbotham, War and Society in Revolutionary America (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 196; American Archives, Fifth Series, 2:1066–67.
7 This fable of unknown origin has been around for millennia. Briefly, the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across the river. When the frog says “no, you will sting me,” the scorpion responds, “of course I will not, because then I would drown.” So the frog lets the scorpion onto his back and they set out across the river. The scorpion stings the frog and the frog cries out in disbelief, “why?!” The scorpion responds, “it is in my nature.”
8 “Address to the New York Provincial Congress, June 26, 1775, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 1:41.
9 Chernow, Washington: A Life, 131.
10 Circular to the States, June 8, 1783.
11 Washington to John Augustine Washington, July 18, 1766, in The Writings of George Washington, 1:153.
12 General Orders, July 9, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 5:246.
13 Colonel Loammi Baldwin to his wife, Mary, of Woburn, Massachusetts, June 12, 1777, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 420.
14 Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (New York: Knopf, 2005), 62.
15 Qtd. in ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Chernow, Washington: A Life, 293.
18 The North-British Intelligencer: or Constitutional Miscellany, ed. Robert Dick (1777), 26.
19 Ibid.; Glenn A. Phelps, George Washington and American Constitutionalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 26.
20 Ibid., 37.
21 Abraham D. Sofaer, War, Foreign Affairs and Constitutional Powers: The Origins 20–21, 388n76 (1976), as cited in Barron and Lederman, “The Commander in Chief at the Lowest Ebb,” 774.
22 Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898), 170.
23 According to the Papers of George Washington Project.
24 Washington to Joseph Reed, March 3, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 3:372.
25 John Adams to Washington, January 6, 1776, in ibid., 3:37.
26 Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Knopf, 2004), 93.
27 John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 7, 1776, in Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield (Boston, 1963–2011), 2:38.
28 Ibid.
29 Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774–1777 (Carlisle, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1924), 159.
30 McCullough, 1776, 205.
31 John Adams to Abigail Adams, June 26, 1776, in Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, ed. Paul H. Smith et al. (Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1976–2000), 4:324.
32 Qtd. in Ann M. Becker, “Smallpox in Washington’s Army: Strategic Implications of the Disease During the American Revolutionary War,” Journal of Military History 68 no. 2 (2004): 400.
33 Ibid., 401. Becker refers to the Boston Gazette, February 12, 1776, and adds, “Though the evidence strongly suggests intentional exposure, Cash discounts the idea that General Howe deliberately spread smallpox among the refugees.”
34 Washington to John Hancock, December 11, 1775, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2:533–34.
36 General Orders, May 24–26, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 4:384–87.
37 Erwin H. Ackerknecht, A Short History of Medicine (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1968), 45.
38 General Orders, December 11, 1775, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 2:528–29.
39 Benson John Lossing, Mount Vernon and Its Associations: Historical, Biographical, and Pictorial (1859), 52.
40 Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, 1:92.
41 Lossing, Mount Vernon and Its Associations, 52.
42 Helen Bryan, Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty (New York: Wiley, 2002), 192.
43 Washington to John Augustine Washington, April 29, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 4:173.
44 He knew of her anxiety when her son had been inoculated and “doubted she would make good on her pledge” to undergo the procedure. Chernow, Washington: A Life, 231.
45 Ibid., 205.
46 Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (New York: H. Holt & Co., 1996), 53.
47 Elizabeth Anne Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Hill & Wang, 2001), 101.
48 Joseph Hodgkins to Sarah Hodgkins, qtd. in This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Grade Officers in Washington’s Army, ed. Robert Lively (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958).
49 Washington to John Hancock, September 2, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:199.
Chapter 14: Between a Hawk and a Buzzard
1 McCullough, 1776, 166.
2 Ibid., 167.
3 John Trumbull, “M’Fingal,” The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 416.
4 Natalie Wolchover, “Why Do Americans and Brits Have Different Accents?” Life’s Little Mysteries, citing John Algeo, The Cambridge History of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 London Chronicle, qtd. in McCullough, 1776, 167.
10 Lord Rawdon Francis to Francis, tenth Earl of Huntington, August 5, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 424.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Lord Hugh Percy to Lord George Germain, September 2, 1776, in Letters of Hugh, Earl Percy, from Boston and New York, 1774–1776, ed. Charles Knowles Bolton (1902), 71.
15 From the Journals of Sir George Collier, in Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society (1869), 2:413.
16 Resolution of the Continental Congress, June 16, 1775, in Journals of the Continental Congress, 2:92–95.
17 Barron and Lederman, “The Commander in Chief at the Lowest Ebb,” 776.
18 Washington to John Hancock, September 8, 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:251
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 It is unclear how strongly Washington felt about conducting a full withdrawal. His letters to Congress express profound uncertainty about his next moves.
22 Ibid.
23 Congress said they did not intend for Washington to be bound by the war council’s decisions, but they did not inform him of this until later.
24 Colonel Joseph Reed to Mrs. Reed, September 6, 1776, in American Archives, Fourth Series, 2:198.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ira K. Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, New York (1898), 1:144.
28 Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 319.
29 Francis Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (1889), 2:141–42.
30 Gregory T. Edgar, Campaign of 1776: The Road to Trenton (Bowie: Heritage Books, 1995), 170.
31 Ira Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution (New York: Atheneum, 1972), 199.
32 McCullough, 1776, 208.
33 Journals of the Continental Congress, 5:749.
34 McCullough, 1776, 208.
35 Nathanael Greene to Washington, September 5, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 456.
36 Journals of the Continental Congress, 5:733.
37 Washington to Lund Washington, October 6, 1776.
Chapter 15: Onslaught
1 Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, September 15, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 464.
2 Ibid.
3 Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York: Signet Classics, 2001), 31.
4 Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, September 15, 1776.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, 31.
8 Ibid., 32.
9 McCullough, 1776, 213.
10 General George Weedon to John Page, President of the Virginia Council, September 20, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 467.
11 Colonel George Hanger, To All Sportsmen and Particularly Farmers, and Gamekeepers (1814), 205, as qtd. in Harold L. Peterson, The Book of the Continental Soldier (Harrisburg, Penn.: Stackpole Co., 1968), 27.
12 Ibid.
13 Diary of Captain Frederick Mackenzie, September 20, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 473.
14 Eyewitnesses reported that the fire broke out in multiple locations, thus indicating arson. However, it is possible that the fire was indeed accidental and the wind spread it to other buildings, thereby making it appear to originate from multiple places. Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York (New York: Walker & Co., 2002), 206.
15 Sir William Howe to Lord George Germain, September 23, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 475. To the contrary, see Schecter, The Battle for New York, 207. Some Americans blamed the British and Hessians for starting it as pretext for plunder.
16 The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 471.
17 Diary of Captain Frederick Mackenzie, September 20, 1776.
18 Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 107.
19 Governor William Tryon to Lord Germain, September 1776, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 6:370.
20 William Glanville Evelyn, Memoir and Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn, of the 4th Regiment from North American, 1774–1776, ed. G. D. Scull (1879), 86.
21 The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 471.
22 Ibid., 468.
23 Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman to his father, September 19, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 470.
24 The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 468.
25 Journal of Dr. James Thacher, September 15, 1776, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 64. It is likely that the British tarried due to Clinton’s orders, but the Americans nevertheless credited Mrs. Murray as their savior. Special thanks to Jonathan Rollo for his insight into this event.
26 Diary of Frederick Mackenzie (New York: Arno Press, 1967), 111–12, qtd. in Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 276n8.
27 Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 31, 1776, in The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762–1784, ed. L. H. Butterfield et al. (1975; Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002), 164.
28 Ibid. Abigail Adams did not believe the spanking rumors, however.
29 Joan N. Burstyn, Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990), 32. Mary Hays McCauley’s exact age is unknown, but it is estimated that she was born on October 13, 1754. Many historians believe that Mary “became immortalized as the representative, if not the only, ‘Molly Pitcher,’” a name given to the various women who took direct action in the war effort. Ibid.
30 Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, 88. Special thanks to Joseph Gonzalez for his excellent insights into this event, which occurred at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey.
32 Gettysburg Compiler, March 27, 1822.
33 Washington and Congress initially rejected slaves and free African Americans from the army; but when the British began to enlist free blacks and promise freedom to slaves, Washington changed his mind and allowed free blacks to fight.
34 Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 52.
35 Ibid.
36 Robert C. Doyle, The Enemy in Our Hands: America’s Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War, from the Revolution to the War on Terror (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 29. Estimation based on MeasuringWorth.com’s conversion using average earnings.
37 Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 60.
38 The Examination of Witnesses in the House of Commons on the Conduct of Lord Howe and Sir William Howe, 1779: The Examination of General Robertson, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 529. See also Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 64.
39 From Philipp Losch, Soldatenhandel : mit einem Verzeichnis der Hessen-kasselischen Subsidienvertrage und einer Bibliographie (Kassel: Hamecher, 1974), as translated in Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 63.
40 American Archives, Fifth Series, 3:1188.
41 Memoirs of Elisha Bostwick of the Seventh Connecticut Regiment, in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 512.
42 Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 114.
43 Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, 1:297.
Chapter 16: The Times That Try Men’s Souls
1 McCullough, 1776, 249.
2 Geo. Bickham, Council of Safety Report, December 27, 1776, in Clark Kinnaird, George Washington: The Pictorial Biography (New York: Hastings House, 1967), 106.
3 Ibid.
4 Chernow, Washington: A Life, 263.
5 McCullough, 1776, 267.
6 Joseph R. Conlin, The American Past: A Survey of American History (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 147.
7 Ibid.
8 Thomas Jones, A History of New York During the Revolutionary War, ed. Edward Floyd de Lancy (1879), 1:351.
9 Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (New York: Random House, 2006), 65.