by Jeff Shaara
In late 1783, Franklin witnesses a phenomenon that has all of France in an uproar: the launching of a lighter-than-air balloon, and later, the first such launch that bears human passengers. In response to skepticism that a balloon has no usefulness, he says, “What use is a newborn infant?”
His farewell to France inspires universal sorrow in that country, and he returns to America as the most celebrated and famed private citizen in the world. Arriving in Philadelphia, he is received with all the respect and acclaim appropriate to his long years of extraordinary service and accomplishments. His return is marked by an artillery salute and a continuous ringing of church bells. But his public service is far from concluded. Elected to the Pennsylvania State Assembly, he is voted by that body to be “President of Pennsylvania.” As the new nation begins to feel the pains of creating its first true government, in 1787, at age eighty-one, Franklin is selected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. As he suffers the increasing strains of age and the stone that torments him, his presence becomes as much ceremonial as practical. Though he proposes several suggestions as the foundation for the new government, including a single house of legislature, none are adopted. He accepts the diminished stature of his role with grace, regards his presence as a post of honor, and behaves accordingly. Though becoming too frail for the grueling debates required to shape the document, for those who seek him out, he is never without humor, counsel, and wisdom.
Increasingly inactive, he only occasionally attends the convention, and as the particulars of the document continue to be disputed, he offers one final bit of counsel: “I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of this Convention who may still have objections to it would, with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”
He is among the first to sign it, and is a key force behind the ratification of the document by the state of Pennsylvania.
He continues to be sharp of mind, but his body’s failures increasingly confine him to his home. He receives friends and noted visitors, and finds enormous pleasure in the company of his grandchildren. To the amused annoyance of his friends in Philadelphia, he disputes the adoption of the bald eagle as the symbol of the new nation, prefers instead the turkey, “a much more respectable bird.”
Despite the tormenting misery he suffers from the bladder stone, he will not consent to an operation. His daughter Sally remains constantly by his side, and when she seeks to comfort him with the wish that his life will yet be long, he replies, “I hope not.” He is stricken with an infection in his lung and lapses into a coma, from which he never awakes. In the presence of his two grandsons, he dies on April 17, 1790. He is eighty-four.
Franklin’s writings are preserved primarily by the efforts of his grandson, Temple, who serves as editor of a definitive six-volume collection of Franklin’s essays, experiments, and witticisms, published in 1818.
Historian Carl Van Doren writes: “Franklin was not one of those men who owe their greatness merely to the opportunities of their times. In any age, in any place, Franklin would have been great. He moved through the world in a humorous mastery of it. Whoever learns about his deeds remembers longest the man who did them. And sometimes, with his marvelous range . . . he seems to have been more than any single man: a harmonious human multitude.”
The portrait of Franklin stolen from the Franklin home by British Major John André remains in possession of the descendants of General Charles Grey until 1906, when Albert, Earl Grey, Governor of Canada, offers its return. The painting hangs today in the White House in Washington, D.C.
All the days of my life I shall remember that a great man, a sage, wished to be my friend.
—MADAME ANNE-LOUISE BRILLON
NATHANAEL GREENE
During 1782, he continues to maintain his post in the Carolinas, and when the British evacuate Charleston, Greene occupies the city as his headquarters. He spends long months assisting the state of South Carolina to rebuild its government. He is thus rewarded with enormous gifts of both land and money from the three states in his department, the Carolinas and Georgia. In August 1783, he travels home to a hero’s welcome in Rhode Island, but returns to the south with prospects for settling into the life of a gentleman farmer.
His personal reputation is severely damaged by a scandal involving the finances he had worked to secure for the feeding of his army, a problem that Washington had eliminated through the support of Robert Morris in Pennsylvania. But the Southern Departments are too far removed from the concerns of congress, and Greene learns that those he trusted to secure the debts necessary to provide for his men have squandered the funds. Despite his reception in the southern states as an heroic savior, he is nonetheless held accountable for the financial pledges, and thus, most of the gifts he has been rewarded are reclaimed by the states as payment.
In the summer of 1785, he moves Kitty and his now four children to the one remaining property he holds in Georgia, called Mulberry Grove. His years of frustration in dealing with the congress, both as Washington’s subordinate and as quartermaster general, give him considerable insight into politics, and he writes often about the critical need for a central government. His principles and suggestions mirror many of those eventually written into the Constitution. Though he is considered a likely candidate for several political offices, he refuses any offers, has had enough of life so far removed from his family. He settles well into the pleasant life on his farm, surprises himself that he shares Washington’s enthusiasm for the soil. He is surprised even more when he learns his passion is shared by a new neighbor, “Mad Anthony” Wayne.
But Greene’s New England upbringing has given him a weakness he cannot predict, and despite so many campaigns and so much physical distress in war, it is the summer sun that strikes him down. Accompanied by Kitty, he journeys to Savannah in an unsheltered carriage, and the oppressive heat gives him a fever from which he never recovers. On June 19, 1785, attended by Kitty and Anthony Wayne, Greene dies. He is forty-four.
He is one of only two general officers who serve in the army continuously from the first siege of Boston through the surrender. The other is Washington, who, after the British surrender, salutes Greene with what is now an ironic note: “I congratulate you on the glorious end you have put to hostilities in the Southern States. The honor and advantage of it I hope you will live long to enjoy.”
Strangely, Greene is often overlooked by early historians, and his greatest notoriety emerges first from the pens of the British. Sir John Fortescue writes: “Greene’s reputation stands firmly on his campaign in the Carolinas. His keen insight into the heart of the blunders of Cornwallis and his skillful use of his troops are the most notable features of his work. He is a general of profound common sense.”
Greene’s friend and subordinate, Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, proposes to congress a resolution that a monument to Nathanael Greene be constructed in the nation’s capital. The motion passes with no controversy, but the matter is strangely forgotten. In 1875, the issue is reopened by Rhode Island’s two senators, and ninety years late, the monument is finally constructed in Washington, D.C.
As long as the enterprises of Trenton and Princeton shall be regarded as the dawning of that bright day which afterward broke forth with such resplendent luster, so long ought the name of Greene to be revered by a grateful country.
—ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 1789
MARIE DU MOTIER, THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE
Upon his return to France in early 1782, he finally begins to receive the respect due him from the “veterans” of the French service. His close acquaintance with King Louis XVI ensures a prominent position in French foreign affairs, and when Thomas Jefferson is sent to Paris as United States minister to France, Lafayette becomes his invaluable liaison in the often dark halls of French government.
In 1789, he is named commander of the National Guard, the elite troops close to King Louis. He continues to serve hi
s king during the early months of the French Revolution, and single-handedly rescues Louis and Marie Antoinette from one notable explosion of mob violence.
He is promoted to lieutenant general in the French army in 1791, is prominent as commander of the French forces when war with Austria erupts in 1792. Swept out of power by the outcome of the French Revolution, he flees the country, only to be captured and imprisoned by the Austrians. Freed by Napoleon in 1797, he returns to France to find a very different land, under the control of a dictator whom Lafayette respects but will not serve. Napoleon continues to offer him positions in his government, including the prestigious post as representative to the United States. But Lafayette refuses, chooses instead to pursue a peaceful life as a civilian. He settles into the farm country outside Paris until 1818, then succumbs to pressure to return to politics. He serves in the French Chamber of Deputies for six years, but resigns to accept an invitation from President James Monroe to tour the United States as an honored guest of a grateful nation.
In 1824–25, his yearlong parade through America is met by an extraordinary show of affection and admiration from a people to which he had been so dedicated. He returns to France every bit the hero who has captured the love of the American people.
He writes his memoirs, describing himself in the third person and making no attempt at modesty. But few can deny that the accounts are among the most accurate of those set into writing by one who was so centrally involved in the struggle for American independence.
Nearly bankrupted by the French Revolution, he never seeks reimbursement of his considerable expenses during the war in America. Congress awards him a small fraction of what he is due, but provides him a sizable grant of land, mostly in the new territory that is Louisiana.
He returns to politics, but never enjoys the prestige and power of his early years. He lives out his life as a beloved man of modest means and dies from a flulike ailment in May 1834. He is seventy-seven.
HENRY KNOX
The modest, obese bookseller who becomes the self-taught master of Washington’s artillery is appointed to succeed George Washington as the second commander in chief of the American army. In that post for only a year, he becomes secretary of war in 1785, though that office is not yet given official status by the constitution. He remains in that position under President George Washington until 1794.
He falls into the trap that ensnares so many continental officers, and involves himself in land speculation in what becomes the state of Maine. He is nearly bankrupted, though he and Lucy continue to own a sizable piece of farmland near Thomaston, Maine. After resigning his position under Washington, he moves his family to their home there, called Montpelier, which is one of the finest mansions in that part of the country.
Lucy gives him twelve children, of whom only three reach adulthood. Throughout Knox’s life, he and Lucy continue to inspire the admiration of their friends for their childlike affection toward each other. They become the center of society in their small world, and Knox’s lust for food and high living is well known. On one occasion he writes, “On July Fourth, we had a small company of upwards of five hundred people.”
He dies in September 1806, at age fifty-six. Lucy lives until 1824, her widowhood described by friends as a “joyless endurance.”
CHARLES LEE
After being removed from the field by Washington at the Battle of Monmouth, Lee never again serves the country in any public capacity. He is outraged at the humiliation handed him by the commanding general, and requests a formal court-martial to clear his name of the “cruel injustice” Washington has inflicted upon him. Instead of clearing his name, he is convicted of all charges. His continued criticism of the rank amateurism in Washington’s army inspires Frederick von Steuben, Anthony Wayne, and John Laurens to challenge him to duels. The only actual confrontation is with Laurens, who gives Lee a minor wound.
In July 1779, he returns to his home in Virginia, and in January 1780, the congress officially dismisses him from the army. He dies in Philadelphia in 1782, at age fifty-one.
DANIEL MORGAN
After retiring to his home in the Shenandoah Valley, he returns briefly to service under Lafayette to assist in the defense against Tarleton’s Virginia raids, but his health continues to plague him, and by mid-1781, his days of active service in the Revolution are at an end.
In 1794, he accepts Washington’s request to serve during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, returns home to Virginia, where he is elected to Congress in 1797. He takes his four hundred ninety-nine scars to his grave in Winchester, Virginia, in 1802, at age sixty-six.
Morgan is one of only eight men to be awarded congressional gold medals for his service during the war.
HORATIO GATES
After his humiliation at the Battle of Camden, Gates returns to his home in Virginia. Incensed at the widespread and vocal disregard for his abilities, he demands an official inquiry into his performance. In 1782, a congress that is focused on the much more important task of forging a peace clears him of misconduct, though no one will speak publicly on his behalf. Returning briefly to the army, Gates is the power behind much of the fiery talk aimed at inciting the army to lay siege to the congress, which Washington defuses.
After the peace treaty, Gates returns to Virginia, suffers the death of his wife, and soon proceeds to offer his hand in marriage to several prominent women, including the widow of the heroic General Richard Montgomery, who was killed at Quebec. His quest finally lands him a marriage to a wealthy New Yorker. He dies in 1806, at age seventy-eight.
ANTHONY WAYNE
Promoted to major general in 1783, “Mad Anthony” retires to the plantation given him as a reward for his service to the state of Georgia. But he discovers that farming is not always profitable, and after several financial setbacks, he returns to his home in Pennsylvania, where he serves in the assembly, and then, in 1791, is elected to Congress.
He serves the army again in an attempt to deal with Indian violence in western Pennsylvania, and in 1794, routs a large force of Indians, bringing an effective end to the conflict. On the journey home, he is stricken by illness, and dies at Erie, Pennsylvania, in December 1796. He is fifty-one.
FREDERICK VON STEUBEN
He leaves the army in March 1784, and is granted full citizenship by his adopted country. He moves to New York City, and establishes himself as a lion of society. Always an honored guest at parties, he obliges with his martial bearing and boisterous manner. Though popular with the New York society ladies, he never marries. Granted a pension by Congress, and a significant land grant in New York state, he retires to his new home in the Mohawk Valley. He is stricken by a sudden, unexplained illness, and dies, November 1794, at age sixty-four. Leaving no heirs, his estate is bequeathed to the two adjutants who had served him throughout his experience in the American war, Majors Walker and North.
In 1910, in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to American independence, Congress erects a statue of him in Washington, D.C. A duplicate of this statue is erected the following year in Potsdam, Prussia.
TENCH TILGHMAN
Washington’s most trusted and loyal aide resigns from the army in December 1783. He returns to Maryland, settles, and marries, in Baltimore. With an eye toward learning the relatively new business of banking, he is assisted by Robert Morris in establishing a small financial company. But he dies suddenly in 1786, at age forty-two.
HENRY “LIGHT-HORSE HARRY” LEE
Lee remains with Nathanael Greene for the concluding chapters of the war and distinguishes himself and his Legion in every major fight Greene undertakes.
In February 1782, he resigns from the army, claims ill health. He returns home to Virginia, marries his cousin, Matilda Lee, who dies in 1790. He then marries Anne Carter in 1793. He is asked by Washington to command the troops organized to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and succeeds in restoring the peace without the loss of a single man. He serves in the United States Congress for five
years, until 1788, as governor of Virginia until 1795, and returns to Congress in 1799.
Lee engages in several unwise business dealings, shows such an astounding lack of business sense that he becomes completely destitute. His creditors show no mercy to the former hero, and in 1808, he is confined for two years in a debtor’s prison. Upon his release, he travels to the West Indies, presumably to heal old war wounds, but more likely to escape his creditors. In 1818, returning to Virginia, he dies en route, and is buried at Cumberland Island, Georgia. He is sixty-two. In 1913, his remains are moved to the Lee family vault at the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He rests there alongside his son, Robert E. Lee.
Henry Lee’s memoirs, published in 1812, are widely considered one of the finest firsthand accounts produced during this era of American history.
SILAS DEANE
Attacked relentlessly by Arthur Lee’s influential friends in congress, Deane retires from public life a broken and humiliated man. He returns to France in 1781, and sinks into a personal despair that inspires him to write extremely unwise letters that pass through the hand of his secretary, Edward Bancroft, who is in fact a British spy. The letters are an exercise in bitterness, with Deane claiming that America should not continue its quest for independence. Bancroft reveals the letters so that they are made public in both England and America, and Deane has now sealed his fate. Accused not only of financial misdealings, but treason as well, he endures his remaining years in exile. He dies en route to Canada in 1789, at age fifty-two.
The man so responsible for engineering crucial French financial support does not receive his due until 1842, when Congress recognizes that Arthur’s Lee’s conspiracy against Deane was without basis, and that in fact Deane’s ledgers are accurate and his accounts entirely honest.
ROBERT MORRIS
The man so responsible for sorting out the financial quagmire of the Revolution rarely receives credit for repeatedly saving Washington’s army. Those in congress who possess none of Morris’ worldly understanding of commerce regard him instead as a man never to be trusted. Caught up in the controversy that surrounds Silas Deane, Morris’ services to congress draw to a close. Despite vicious criticism of his business practices from such notable writers as Thomas Paine, Morris still carries the enthusiastic support of George Washington, and Washington’s friends in congress, including John Adams. Morris is appointed superintendent of finances in 1781, a precursor to what will become the post of Secretary of the Treasury. With considerable financial assistance from the French, he founds the Bank of North America in 1782, and does much to prevent the utter collapse of the fledgling American economy. Receiving little support from either the congress or the states, he resigns in 1784. Exhausted and embittered, he declines Washington’s offer to serve as first Secretary of the Treasury, instead represents Pennsylvania in the United States Senate until 1795.
