George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  Washington knew from hard personal experience that disease—particularly dysentery—posed a greater threat than enemy action. General Orders issued at Cambridge on July 14 emphasized the importance of “cleanliness,” upon which “the health of an army principally depends.” To that end, the privies were to be filled in weekly and new ones dug; the streets of the encampments were to be swept daily; “offal and carrion” were to be buried and all “filth and dirt” removed. Perseverance in such sanitation would, it was hoped, “remove that odious reputation, which (with but too much reason) has stigmatized the character of American troops.” Further orders warned against drinking “new cider”: as nothing was “more pernicious to the health of soldiers, nor more certainly productive of the bloody-flux,” locals hoping to peddle the beverage were warned that their casks would be stove in.22

  The first weeks of Washington’s command also saw efforts to instill traditional military protocol. As guards were tardy in turning out to salute Washington and his generals, orders were issued for the correct honors to be observed: for example, the commander in chief himself, who was now referred to as “His Excellency,” was to be received by the guard with their muskets “rested” while the officer in charge saluted and the drummers beat a march. And as neither sentries, nor even their officers, yet recognized their commanders, they were “to make themselves acquainted with the persons of all the officers in the general command.” To avoid confusion, high-ranking officers would wear different-colored ribbons across their breast, between the coat and waistcoat: Washington’s was light blue, while the major generals and brigadier generals wore pink and aides green. As the Continental Army lacked uniforms, further “badges of distinction” were ordered to indicate rank: field officers were permitted to wear red or pink cockades in their hats, captains yellow or buff, and junior officers green. Sergeants could wear an epaulette, or stripe of red cloth, on the right shoulder, with corporals designated by green.23

  As always, Washington took great pains with his personal appearance. Soon after he arrived at Boston, Dr. James Thacher, a local man who had volunteered his medical skills to the patriot cause, was “gratified with a view of General Washington” on horseback and accompanied by several other officers. Young Thacher was impressed by Washington’s demeanor, presence, and immaculate uniform, noting: “It was not difficult to distinguish him from all others. His personal appearance is truly noble and majestic, being tall and well proportioned. His dress is a blue coat with buff-colored facings, a rich epaulette on each shoulder, buff under-dress, and an elegant small sword; a black cockade in his hat.”24

  The dearth of uniforms for the rank and file prompted Washington to suggest that Congress issue them with simple, cheap, and utilitarian “hunting shirts” rather than traditional woolen regimental coats. Made of cloth or linen, either left “natural” or dyed, these loose, smock-like garments were popular on the Appalachian frontier, and Washington’s proposal recalled his 1758 initiative to clothe part of his own Virginia Regiment in “Indian dress.” In July 1775, however, Washington was not merely interested in practicality; indeed, he argued, this seemingly “trivial” step, by establishing a universal costume, “would have a happier tendency to unite the men, and abolish those provincial distinctions which lead to jealousy and dissatisfaction.”25 While Congress approved of the plan, it was shelved because not enough of the necessary “tow-cloth” could be found locally. In coming years, the “hunting shirt,” or “rifle shirt,” nonetheless became a popular “field” uniform for many members of the Continental Army—but not before it sparked the very provincial rivalries that Washington had hoped to surmount.

  The original army gathered to besiege Boston in 1775 had been drawn exclusively from New England. During late summer, its homogeneous character slowly began to change as reinforcements trickled in from elsewhere. The riflemen sent by Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, now reinforced from ten to twelve companies, made a strong impression upon Yankees like James Thacher, who regarded them with wonder: “They are remarkably stout and hardy men,” he wrote, “many of them exceeding six feet in height. They are dressed in white frocks, or rifle-shirts, and round hats. These men are remarkable for the accuracy of their aim, striking a mark with great certainty at two hundred yards distance.” According to Thacher, these marksmen soon proved their worth, picking off redcoats rash enough to expose themselves, “even at more than double the distance of common musket-shot.”26

  The tough backwoods rifleman, clad in his fringed “hunting shirt” and dealing death from afar, was destined to provide one of the most enduring and popular images of the Revolutionary War and to become a cornerstone of its military mythology. Washington, who was already thoroughly familiar with rifles from his service on the Virginian frontier and had carried one himself during the 1754 Fort Necessity campaign, was less easily impressed than Dr. Thacher. Writing to Samuel Washington in late September, he grumbled that the riflemen had so far enjoyed little opportunity to demonstrate their skill, or indeed their ignorance, “for some of them, especially from Pennsylvania, know no more of a rifle than my horse, being new imported Irish, many of whom have deserted to the enemy.”27

  Washington’s jaundiced perspective no doubt reflected an incident, just weeks earlier, when he was obliged to quell mutinous Pennsylvanians of Colonel Thompson’s rifle battalion who had objected after comrades were confined in the guardhouse for minor crimes. About thirty of them, with loaded rifles, had marched for the main guard at Cambridge, vowing to free their friends or die trying. Already warned by Brigadier General Greene that “the rifflers” were “very sulky” and threatened to “rescue their mates,” Washington reacted swiftly by turning out 500 men with fixed bayonets and loaded muskets. When he confronted the irate riflemen and ordered them to ground their arms, they meekly obeyed. Thoroughly cowed, all were marched off under guard. According to one eyewitness, Washington was “extremely displeased” and vented his anger in an impassioned speech, declaring “that the rifle men were the men he depended on.” Indeed, “to be so much disappointed seemed very much to affect him.”28

  This worrying episode underlined the ineffectiveness of the “Rules and Articles” governing discipline in the Continental Army that had been approved by Congress in June. Mutiny was a serious crime that struck at the very heart of military efficiency. It was accordingly punishable by death under the British Articles of War that American provincials had encountered during the previous conflict when serving alongside the redcoats. Yet in 1775, the Continental Army had no such sanction, with the capital sentence restricted to cowardice in the face of the enemy. Officers were not subject to corporal punishment, while the maximum sentence for other ranks was limited to the biblical thirty-nine lashes typical of provincial units in the last war. This was mild indeed compared with the five hundred or more lashes routinely inflicted in the British Army and which Washington had authorized during his drive to discipline the Virginia Regiment.

  As it turned out, Thompson’s riflemen suffered nothing more painful than their tongue-lashing from Washington: court-martialed for “disobedient and mutinous behavior,” thirty-three were fined twenty shillings, while a ringleader also received six days in jail; previously excused fatigue and guard details, they had also forfeited their privileged status, sharing such irksome duties with the musket-toting soldiers in the rest of their brigade. The same episode was apparently responsible for a ruling by Congress, part of a general tightening of the Articles of War following a conference with Washington at his headquarters in October, which extended the death penalty to cover mutiny and sedition.29

  The troubling unrest among Thompson’s Pennsylvanians is not mentioned in Washington’s own correspondence, but neither is another affray involving riflemen, in which his intervention allegedly took a far more physical turn. The evidence for this rests entirely on the testimony of Israel Trask, aged just ten years old in 1775, who recalled it seventy years later, when applying for a Revolutionary War pensio
n. During the siege of Boston, young Israel acted as a cook and messenger to the Massachusetts regiment in which his father served. Sometime that winter, a party of Virginian riflemen attracted the attention of the Marblehead Regiment, which was recruited from local sailors and fishermen. As the mariners’ curiosity at the riflemen’s distinctive “ruffled and fringed” shirts turned to scorn and jeering, an opening exchange of snowballs escalated into a full-scale brawl. Inside five minutes, so Trask maintained, “more than a thousand combatants” were locked in a fierce struggle, biting, gouging, and knocking each other down. At that very moment Washington rode up, accompanied by only his black servant, the slave Billy Lee. The commander in chief’s response to the crisis was swift and direct. “With the spring of a deer,” Trask remembered, Washington “leaped from his saddle, threw the reins of his bridle into the hands of his servant,” then plunged “into the thickest of the melee,” where “with an iron grip, he seized two tall, brawny, athletic, savage-looking riflemen by the throat, keeping them at arms length, alternately shaking and talking to them.” As the other brawlers became aware of Washington’s presence, they scattered, leaving him alone with his two captives. And so, without recourse to courts-martial, and by sheer dint of physical and mental power, Washington extinguished “hostile feelings between the different corps of the army.” It is tempting to dismiss this incredible story as the product of an old man’s jumbled memory, heavily influenced by Washington’s towering posthumous reputation. Yet, while perhaps conflating distinct episodes, including the earlier mutiny of Thompson’s men, it likely preserves at least some semblance of truth.30

  By early August, the fledgling American army faced a critical shortfall in munitions—both lead for casting bullets and the gunpowder to propel them—with just nine rounds per man. Reporting to Congress, Washington was desperate enough to contemplate any scheme to bolster supplies, however far-fetched. Hearing of a sizable powder magazine in a remote part of the far-off island of Bermuda, Washington hoped to send a privateer vessel to impound it. His justification for the venture reveals his attitude toward risk taking in general:

  Enterprises which appear chimerical often prove successful from that very circumstance. Common sense and prudence will suggest vigilance and care where the danger is plain and obvious, but where little danger is apprehended the more the enemy is found unprepared and consequently there is the fairer prospect of success.31

  It was a creed that Washington would put to the test soon enough.

  Given the gunpowder crisis, it was fortunate for Washington that his opponent Thomas Gage stayed on the defensive, with military operations amounting to no more than bickering between outposts. This skirmishing had nonetheless yielded prisoners on both sides, raising the sensitive issue of their treatment. Washington and Gage had remained on friendly terms until the very eve of the rupture between Crown and colonies. Indeed, when Gage returned to England on leave in spring 1773, Washington had attended the farewell dinner given for him by the citizens of New York. Now things were different. Hearing that “officers engaged in the cause of Liberty” had been unceremoniously thrown into a “common gaol” in Boston, Washington warned his old friend that if such harsh treatment persisted, he would be reluctantly obliged to serve British prisoners the same way. He added: “But if kindness and humanity are shown to ours, I shall with pleasure consider those in our hands, only as unfortunate, and they shall receive the treatment to which the unfortunate are ever entitled.”32

  Replying to Washington’s letter, Gage strongly denied allegations that prisoners had been mistreated. Indeed, he declared, “Britons, ever preeminent in mercy, have out-gone common examples, and overlooked the criminal in the captive.” Although Gage did not use the word, such men were rebels “whose lives by the laws of the land are destined to the cord.” Yet far from being hanged as traitors, as they could have been, prisoners had “hitherto been treated with care and kindness,” he added. It was true that officers had fared no differently than others, but that was because Gage acknowledged “no rank that is not derived from the King.”33

  Gage’s moderate stance would be followed by succeeding British commanders in America. Although a Royal Proclamation of Rebellion was issued in London on August 23, 1775, entreating all Crown officers to suppress the insurrection and “to bring the traitors to justice,” the full awful force of the law was never unleashed against the American rebels;34 there would be no executions like those that followed the Jacobite rebellion of 1745–46, which Gage himself had helped to suppress, or the draconian, drum-head justice administered to Irish rebels in 1798.

  As the standoff at Boston continued, Washington became reacquainted with the frustrations of command, although these now dwarfed those he had encountered as colonel of the Virginia Regiment. At headquarters, he was immediately swamped by paper. The experienced Horatio Gates oversaw staff work, but the commander in chief was still obliged to handle a copious correspondence. Simply reading through this today is daunting enough: composing outgoing letters, digesting incoming reports, and acting upon them all amounted to a colossal and mind-numbing task.

  Some of this paperwork was exasperatingly trivial. For example, Washington became snared in an ongoing correspondence with a captive British officer on a touchy issue of protocol. Major Christopher French of the 22nd Foot—the same officer who had served on James Grant’s expedition against the Cherokees in 1761—had been captured after he disembarked in New Jersey, unaware that war had already erupted. While accepting French’s word of honor not to escape from Hartford, Connecticut, where he was being held, the local committee of safety had ruled that the major must not strut around town wearing his sword, “as the lower class of townspeople took umbrage” at such provocative behavior. Major French appealed to Washington as one officer to another, trusting that the Virginian’s “long service and intimate acquaintance with military rules and customs” would prompt him to intervene in his favor. It was soon clear, however, that Major French had talked himself into trouble, announcing that if he were able to join his regiment, he “should act vigorously against the country, and do every thing in his power to reduce it,” sentiments that had caused the patriots of Hartford to regard him “as a most determined foe.” Replying from headquarters, Washington was surprised at French’s insistence upon “points of mere punctilo,” particularly given the rough treatment endured by “those brave American officers who were taken fighting gallantly in defense of the liberties of their country.” As French enjoyed “all the essential comforts of life,” Washington hoped he would have the “prudence and good sense” to abide by the wishes of the Hartford folk. After all, he added wryly, the major’s stay among them might be longer than anticipated.35

  Major French’s keen sense of honor was just one among many distractions as Washington grappled with an overriding problem destined to dog him to despair: an army composed of amateur part-timers must inevitably melt away as the men’s stipulated periods of enlistment expired. Writing to John Hancock on September 21, he warned that, as the Connecticut troops were only engaged until December 1, and none of the others for longer than January 1, the “dissolution” of the army was therefore unavoidable, “unless some early provision is made against such an event.” Washington’s generals believed that, if the men were appeased with a spell of leave, it should be possible to reenlist them to serve the coming winter, but there was no guarantee.36

  Using tactful and restrained language, which contrasted with his often intemperate rants to Governor Dinwiddie twenty years before, Washington warned Hancock and his colleagues of an impending crisis. “It gives me great pain,” he wrote, “to be obliged to solicit the attention of the honorable Congress, to the state of this army, in terms which imply the slightest apprehension of being neglected.” But he had no choice. With winter fast approaching upon poorly clad “naked” men whose time of service would expire within a few weeks and with military funds “totally exhausted,” his situation was “inexpressibly distressing.�
�� Someone was to blame, although Washington diplomatically hesitated to point the finger against Congress: “I know not to whom I am to impute this failure,” he continued, “but I am of the opinion, if the evil is not immediately remedied and more punctuality observed in future, the army must absolutely break up.”

  This firm but respectful stance, in which Washington acknowledged the primacy of the Revolution’s civilian leadership while simultaneously emphasizing the genuine needs of the men fighting to uphold American liberty, would characterize his relations with Congress while commander of the Continental Army. By instinct Washington was a soldier rather than a politician, yet he had gradually learned to combine the roles of both to achieve his ends. His long and nuanced letter to Hancock is evidence of maturing political skills, acquired in Virginia’s House of Burgesses since his first military retirement in 1759 and polished during the Continental Conventions of 1774–75. It had the desired effect: a committee of Congress was soon on its way to Cambridge to address the key issues.

  Meanwhile, Washington was keen to attack Boston while he still had troops to command. In the same letter in which he informed Hancock of the Continental Army’s dire situation, Washington emphasized his own wish “by some decisive stroke to relieve my country from the heavy expense, its subsistence must create.” Indeed, no man in America hoped more earnestly for “such a termination of the campaign, as to make the army no longer necessary.”