George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  Meanwhile, Clinton’s gaze had been drawn inexorably back to his perennial objective, the rugged Hudson Highlands. Sir Henry’s latest plan to seize them hatched one of the most notorious and remarkable episodes in the American Revolutionary War, which affected both him and Washington more profoundly than any other. It hinged upon the treason of the revolutionary hero Major General Benedict Arnold, now commandant of the crucial fortifications at West Point. In an act of breathtaking duplicity, the discontented Arnold agreed to sell his post to the British for £20,000 and the rank of general in the royal service.

  Since early 1779, as he informed Germain, Clinton had been given reason to believe that Arnold was “desirous of quitting the rebel service and joining the cause of Great Britain” owing to his “displeasure at the alliance between France and America.” Under a false identity, Arnold embarked upon a secret correspondence that yielded “most material intelligence,” dangling the tantalizing information that he expected to be “employed in the American service” in an important role and was willing to surrender himself “under every possible advantage to His Majesty’s arms.” In July 1780, when Arnold gained command of 4,000 men and all the rebel forts in the Hudson Highlands, Clinton put two and two together: not only was Arnold the mysterious correspondent, he concluded, but he promised an “object of the highest importance”—control of the Hudson River as far as Albany. Admiral Rodney was keen to offer all naval assistance to Clinton’s projected “movement up the North River”: it only remained to confirm Arnold’s identity beyond all doubt, settle the details of the plan, and ensure that there was no risk of the king’s troops falling victim to a counterplot. A meeting was fixed, with Arnold adamant that the person sent to confer with him should be Clinton’s adjutant general, twenty-nine-year-old Major John André, who had handled the secret correspondence from the outset.83

  André was ferried upriver by the sloop HMS Vulture, and the clandestine meeting with Arnold went ahead early on September 22. So far, all had gone to plan, and the plot looked set to fulfill Clinton’s hopes. But the next day, André’s luck ran out. Carrying a pass from Arnold and using the alias “John Anderson,” the major set out overland to reach safety at New York. This journey took him through the no-man’s-land that stretched between the British and American armies, a violent and lawless zone contested by rival bands of irregulars hardened by years of guerrilla warfare and mutually addicted to plunder. In Westchester County, André encountered three American militiamen whom he mistook for Loyalists, not least because one of them, John Paulding, was wearing the “green, red-trimmed coat” of a Hessian jäger.84 Spurning a bribe, the trio searched the major and found incriminating documents in his boot. Out of uniform and beyond his own lines, André was arrested as a spy. Arnold was alerted to this development by a letter from one of his unsuspecting subordinates; he opened it on the morning of September 25, shortly before his treachery became clear to Washington, who arrived at Arnold’s headquarters later that same day on the way back from his discouraging conference with Rochambeau at Hartford. There he read the documents seized from André: in Arnold’s handwriting, these disclosed details of West Point’s defenses. Immediate steps were taken to detain Arnold, but by then he had embarked on a barge, coolly bluffed his way past the American outpost at Verplanck’s Point, and reached safety aboard the Vulture moored downriver.

  The ensuing shock and horror at Arnold’s crime was mingled with relief at the precariously narrow margin by which disaster had been averted. Washington’s General Orders issued the following day, September 26, expressed all three emotions:

  Treason of the blackest dye was yesterday discovered! General Arnold who commanded at West Point, lost to every sentiment of honor, of public and private obligation, was about to deliver up that important post into the hands of the enemy. Such an event must have given the American cause a deadly wound if not fatal stab. Happily the treason has been timely discovered to prevent the fatal misfortune. The providential train of circumstances which led to it affords the most convincing proof that the liberties of America are the object of divine protection.85

  Coming so close to success, Arnold’s plan left Washington badly shaken. Among the most stalwart fighters in the revolutionary cause and severely wounded for his pains, Arnold had been one of Washington’s favorites; in symbolic recognition of his courage on the battlefield he had given him a handsome set of epaulettes. Yet while undoubtedly a warrior, Arnold was plainly no gentleman. André, by contrast, was both. A professional soldier, he’d fought at Brandywine, Paoli, Germantown, and Monmouth. No stranger to the sight of blood and smell of gunsmoke, André was also courteous, debonair, and cultivated, fluent in four languages and a gifted artist to boot; a keen amateur actor, he had not only ridden in the “Mischianza” tournament at Philadelphia in May 1778 but also designed the risqué “Turkish” costumes worn by those ladies daring enough to participate.

  Arnold was beyond retribution, but there remained the question of what to do with André, who had been captured under circumstances that left no doubt of his involvement in espionage. As Washington reported to Sir Henry Clinton, a board of general officers appointed to examine the major swiftly concluded that he “ought to be considered as a spy from the enemy, and that agreeable to the law and usage of nations it is their opinion he ought to suffer death.”86

  Clinton, who ordinarily struggled to form friendships, was devoted to his young adjutant general and deeply concerned at his plight. Believing that Washington’s officers had reached their verdict without all the relevant facts, Clinton sent a three-man delegation upriver in a desperate bid to save André. Only Lieutenant General James Robertson was permitted to land, meeting Major General Nathanael Greene in the private capacity of “gentleman” rather than “officer.” Greene had warned Robertson that the distinction was irrelevant, as “the case of an acknowledged spy admitted no official discussion.” With a “blush,” Greene added that “the army must be satisfied by seeing spies executed.” However, it appeared just one thing would placate them: for André to be set free, Arnold must be given up. Of course, such a solution was unthinkable to Clinton, and Robertson had answered this offer “with a look only, which threw Greene into confusion.” He left the meeting “persuaded” that André would not be harmed.87

  Robertson had misread the determined mood of Washington and his generals. André was under no such illusion. On September 29, he had written Clinton a letter absolving him of any responsibility for his predicament. Now “perfectly tranquil in mind and prepared for any fate to which an honest zeal for my king’s service may have devoted me,” the major asked only that any proceeds from the sale of his officer’s commission would go to his mother and three sisters.88 André’s impeccable conduct in the face of impending death deeply impressed his captors, winning admirers like young Alexander Hamilton. Indeed, he personified the very qualities that they aspired to as officers and gentlemen. Knowing he must die, André hoped at least to be shot like a soldier, not hanged as a spy: he wrote to Washington requesting that indulgence but received no reply. According to Hamilton, as a firing squad would have been “incompatible with the customs of war,” it was decided to withhold an answer to spare André “the sensations, which a certain knowledge of the intended mode would inflict.”89

  André’s execution on October 2 was a solemn, awe-inspiring occasion. One of the many bystanders, Dr. James Thacher, reported that almost all the American army’s senior officers attended—with the notable exception of Washington and his immediate staff. Calm and dignified as he walked through the crowd dressed in his scarlet regimentals and polished boots, André had smiled and exchanged polite bows with several acquaintances. When the gallows suddenly came in sight, he momentarily recoiled. Asked what was amiss, he replied: “I am reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode.” André’s courage was all the more impressive because, as Dr. Thacher noted with rather too much clinical detachment, he was fighting to master his physical fear: while standing near
the gallows, the major revealed “some degree of trepidation; placing his foot on a stone and rolling it over, and choking in his throat, as if attempting to swallow.” But in his last minutes André gave the performance of his life, coolly blindfolding himself with a handkerchief and adjusting the hangman’s noose. In contrast to André’s composure, by now many of the onlookers were openly weeping. Another witness, Major Caleb Gibbs of Washington’s elite Life Guard, reported that, when André was asked for any last words, he simply “called on all the gentlemen present to bear witness that he died like a brave man.” Gibbs added: “and did.”90

  When news of André’s hanging reached Clinton’s army, his officers wore black crepe armbands for eight days as a mark of mourning. Captain Ewald especially regretted André’s fate, as he’d met him before the war while he was visiting Cassell. The captain recalled that he had “shown much friendship for me and the Jäger Corps.”91 Unsurprisingly, the execution of the popular young major provoked an unprecedented storm of opprobrium against Washington from both British officers and civilian commentators. When André’s mock-heroic poem “The Cow Chase,” written in 1780 to lampoon a foraging expedition by Lord Stirling, was republished in London in the following year, its “Advertisement” condemned the “inhuman Washington.”92 The opening stanza of Ann Seward’s “A Monody on the Death of André” exemplified the tragic episode’s impact upon perceptions of a man that many Britons had previously admired:

  Oh Washington! I thought thee great and good,

  Nor knew thy Nero thirst for guiltless blood;

  Severe to use the power that fortune gave;

  Thou cool determined murderer of the brave.93

  Years later, Sir Henry Clinton remained bitter at André’s execution, which he blamed upon Washington’s vindictive rage “at the near accomplishment of a plan which might have effectually restored the King’s authority and tumbled him from his present exalted situation” and which had left him burning “with a desire of wreaking his vengeance on the principal actors in it.” Heedless of “the acknowledged worth and abilities of the amiable young man who had thus fallen into his hands, and in opposition to every principle of policy and call of humanity, he without remorse put him to a most ignominious death.” 94

  There is no evidence that Washington bore André any such malice. Reporting the execution to his aide and close friend Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, he wrote: “Andre has met his fate, and with that fortitude which was to be expected from an accomplished man and gallant officer.” All of Washington’s animosity was channeled at Arnold. While Laurens believed that the turncoat was destined to endure the “torments of a mental Hell,” Washington was convinced that Arnold was immune to self-reproach. “From such traits of his character which have lately come to my knowledge,” he wrote to Laurens, “he seems to have been so hackneyed in villainy, and so lost to all sense of honor and shame that while his faculties will enable him to continue his sordid pursuits there will be no time for remorse.”95

  Indeed, while André attracted almost universal sympathy and admiration, Arnold became the most hated man in America. As Dr. Thacher observed, “Could Arnold have been suspended on the gibbet erected for André, not a tear or sigh would have been produced.” It has been plausibly suggested that the unprecedented invective directed against Arnold screened the guilt of many of his countrymen who had themselves betrayed the revolutionary cause in less spectacular fashion, by failing to join the fight against Britain, or by not even expressing solidarity with the hard-pressed Continental Army.96

  Yet, for all the vilification he incurred, Arnold was scarcely unique in his disillusionment with Congress and its broken promises or, as he expressed it in a letter to Washington, “the ingratitude of my country.”97 Other soldiers who’d risked life and limb for American liberty, only to find their efforts ignored by apathetic civilians, were no less embittered: Arnold’s treason was merely the most dramatic and infamous manifestation of a discontent that would soon surface far more widely.

  10

  The World Turned Upside Down

  For George Washington and the dwindling band of officers and men who remained under his command, 1781 would prove to be the decisive year in the struggle for American independence. Yet at its outset there was precious little cause for optimism; indeed, the year opened with an episode that suggested that the patriot cause had reached its nadir and was crumbling from within.

  While not as cruel as its predecessor, the winter of 1780–81 was harsh enough for the Continentals still billeted in their old huts at Morristown, New Jersey. The bitter weather did nothing to improve the mood of men who were increasingly irate at their treatment by a Congress and states that seemed indifferent to either their services or sufferings. Besides the usual shortages of food, pay, and clothing that had caused unrest among the Connecticut Continentals in May 1780, veterans of the “Pennsylvanian Line” now nursed more specific grievances. Back in 1777, when the “new army” was recruited, they had been enlisted for “three years or during the war”: a dangerously ambiguous wording. In 1779, as the end of the three years approached, the Pennsylvanian Continentals maintained that their enlistments would expire then, not continue as long as the war lasted. Given the army’s chronic shortage of manpower, Washington and the Pennsylvania state authorities not surprisingly upheld the “duration” argument instead. As a douceur to reconcile the men to the fact that they were indeed signed up for the war, each received $100; yet the way in which the dispute was settled, with some men bullied into accepting the payoff, left a bad taste behind it.1

  Deep-seated resentment finally erupted on New Year’s Day 1781, when about 1,500 Pennsylvanian Continentals mutinied at Morristown. As their state was now paying cash bounties for new recruits and for men enlisted on short terms who were willing to sign up for another hitch, these veterans felt betrayed by the settlement they had accepted in 1779. While now insisting that their own enlistments were up, most were ready to reenlist—provided they reaped the same generous benefits as the latecomers and short-timers. The mutineers’ mood was angry. Officers who attempted to restore order were roughly handled, with several of the most unpopular killed or badly hurt by bayonets, musket butts, or stones. For all their violence, the Pennsylvanians were well organized. Electing a “Board of Sergeants” to present their grievances, they resolved to march on Philadelphia—where Congress had presided since the British evacuation of the city in 1778—and confront the revolution’s civilian leadership. The Pennsylvanians’ commander, the fire-eating Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, was unable to quell the discontent, although his men were at pains to assure him of their loyalty to the patriot cause, arresting two agents that Sir Henry Clinton sent from New York in hopes of exploiting the unrest. As Wayne’s determined and defiant men marched through New Jersey to Princeton, he was swept along with them, like a cork on a stream.2

  Such signs that the American revolutionary cause was imploding shocked Rochambeau; if the unrest spread and the Continental Army dissolved, the French court directed, he was to sit tight on Rhode Island until his men could be evacuated to the West Indies.3 At his headquarters at New Windsor, above West Point, George Washington was no less concerned at the “unhappy and alarming defection of the Pennsylvania line,” but, with no guarantee that the men under his immediate command wouldn’t follow suit, he was reluctant to leave them and deal with the mutiny in person. Instead, he urged Wayne to contain the situation, staying with his men and negotiating with them. Mass resistance by armed and livid veterans required delicate handling, and Washington desperately needed their manpower: Wayne should “draw from them what they conceive to be their principal grievances and promise to represent faithfully to Congress and to the state the substance of them and to endeavor to obtain a redress,” he advised. Above all, the notoriously hot-headed “Mad Anthony” Wayne should avoid a heavy-handed use of force. Such a tactic might fail to intimidate determined soldiers or backfire by driving them into the open arms of the Bri
tish.4

  Washington’s advice was sound: talk, not intimidation, defused the crisis. When the mutineers reached Trenton, they were met by Pennsylvania’s state president, the former Continental Army adjutant general and Washington aide Joseph Reed, accompanied by representatives from Congress. Negotiating directly with the sergeants, Reed agreed to discharge every man who claimed to have enlisted for three years only, without awaiting confirmation from the regimental muster rolls. The mutineers were also offered new clothing and back pay, along with immunity from prosecution. Many of them promptly reenlisted for the new bounty. Temporarily paralyzed, within weeks the Pennsylvanian Line had resumed its place within the Continental Army.