American Crisis

by William M. Fowler Jr.

  25 JCC, 21:1087; David B. Mattern, Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 123–24.

  26 Article 8 provided that the costs of the central government “shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value of all land within each state, granted to or surveyed for any Person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the united states in congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint.” Congress never agreed on a system to assess the states. Article 9 also raised a hurdle to action inasmuch as it required the vote of nine states to approve any important legislation.

  27 Washington to Jonathan Trumbull, November 28, 1781, FW, 23:359.

  28 Quoted in Frank E. Grizzard, “George Washington and the Society of the Cincinnati,” the Papers of George Washington Web site, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/grizzard_2.html, accessed March 21, 2010.

  29 Washington to Lafayette, November 15, 1781, FW, 23:340–42.

  30 Richard Buel, In Irons (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 158–211; John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British North America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 358–70.

  31 The finances of the Revolution are complex. E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 109–76.

  32 Diary entry, January 5, 1782, PRM, 3:493.

  33 Gouverneur Morris to John Jay, January 20, 1782, PRM, 4:81–83.

  34 David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 242–73.

  35 François Barbé-Marbois, Our Revolutionary Forefathers: The Letters of François Barbé-Marbois, trans. and ed. Eugene Parker Chase (New York: Books for Libraries, 1969), p. 15. Gregg L. Lint et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 7:xx.

  36 Barbé-Marbois. Our Revolutionary Forefathers, p. 113.

  37 Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 191–217.

  38 JCC, 20:606; William C. Stinchcombe, The American Revolution and the French Alliance (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1969), pp.153–69.

  39 Franklin to Robert Morris, November 5, 1781, PRM, 3:149.

  40 Robert Morris to Chevalier de la Luzerne, November 3, 1781, in ibid., 3:132–34.

  41 Chevalier de la Luzerne to Robert Morris, November 3, 1781, in ibid., 3:140–41.

  42 Robert Morris to Chevalier de la Luzerne, November 6, 1781, in ibid., 3:156.

  43 JCC, 21:1139.

  44 What is the equivalent in “real money” is a question nearly impossible to answer. A rough calculation for current value would put the 28 million livres at approximately 3 billion dollars.

  45 Robert Morris to Franklin, November 27, 1781, PRM, 3:274.

  46 JCC, 22:68–70. For a detailed list of these loans, see Rafael Bayley, The National Loans of the United States from July 4, 1776, to June 30, 1880 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1882), pp. 5–19. It is virtually impossible to translate the value of these loans into modern terms. Suffice it to say that French support was absolutely vital. For an analysis of the value of money during this period, see John J. McCusker, How Much Is That in Real Money? (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1992), passim; and McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 3–25. For a contemporary summary of the public debt, see JCC, 24:286–90.

  47 JCC, 11:502. May 15, 1778. Seven years was a compromise. The original proposal was half pay for life.

  48 GW to Lincoln, May 28, 1782, FW, 24:296.

  49 Robert Morris to Lincoln, January 11, 1782, PRM, 4:9.

  50 Circular to the states, January 22, 1782, FW, 23:459.

  51 Thomas Paine, Common Sense (New York: Peter Eckler, 1918), p. 37.

  52 Thomas Paine, The Crisis (London: James Watson, 1835), p. 3.

  53 Paine to Robert Morris, January 24, 1782, PRM, 4:111.

  54 Diary entry, January 24, 1782, in ibid., 4:107–8.

  55 Diary entry, January 26, 1782, in ibid., 4:115–16.

  56 Ibid.

  57 PRM, 4:201.

  58 Diary entry, February 19, 1782, in ibid., 4:262. David Hawke, Paine (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 123.

  59 Although The Crisis of December 23, 1776, is the best known of this series, Paine actually published several issues under the same title.

  60 Crisis, March 5, 1782.

  61 For a general overview of Paine’s mission, see “Memorandum,” February 1782, PRM, 4:327–29.

  62 General Orders, January 18, 1782, FW, 23:449–50.

  63 JCC, 21:1120; JCC, 22:29.

  64 Knox was denied a promotion three times. It was finally approved on March 22, 1782, with the promotion to date from November 15, 1781, the day he had been first recommended by Washington. JCC, 22:146; North Callahan, Henry Knox (New York: Rinehart, 1958), p. 194.

  65 JCC, 21:1127.

  66 GW to Cornell, February 13, 1782, FW, 23:497–98.

  67 Ibid., p. 498. When Benjamin Lincoln was appointed secretary at war he insisted on keeping his rank as major general. Lincoln to son, November 25, 1781, BLP, reel 6, MHS.

  68 FW, 11:212; Betsy Knight, “Prisoner Exchange and Parole in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, third series, 48 (April 1991), p. 203.

  69 For an overview of the condition of prisoners, see Larry Bowman, Captive Americans: Prisoners During the American Revolution (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), passim.

  70 J. J. Boudinot, ed., The Life, Public Services, Addresses and Letters of Elias Boudinot, LL.D. President of the Continental Congress (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896), 1:76.

  71 Henry Clinton to Welbore Ellis, May 3, 1782. DAR, 19:290.

  72 GW to President of Congress, December 27, 1781, FW, 23:408.

  73 The British also held a considerable number of American seamen. Washington was consistently unwilling to exchange soldiers for seamen, believing that such an arrangement would “give the enemy a very considerable reinforcement.” GW to President of Congress, February 18, 1782, FW, 24:5

  74 Harry Ward, George Washington’s Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), p. 25; James H. Edmonson, “Desertion in the American Army During the Revolutionary War” (Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1971), p. 242, comes up with a somewhat lower number.

  75 GW to Lincoln, January 20, 1782, FW, 23:452–56.

  76 Lincoln to GW, January 23, 1782, BLP, reel 6, MHS.

  77 Diary entry, February 27, 1782, PRM, 4:315. Washington to Colonel Christian Febiger, January 12, 1782, FW, 23:442–44.

  78 See, for example, Nathanael Greene to Robert Morris, PRM, 4:383.

  79 GW to Congress, March 18, 1782, FW, 24:78.

  80 JCC, 22:141.

  81 Diary entry, March 22, 1782, PRM, 4:435; Even after Washington left Philadelphia, Morris continued to host his Monday evening meetings. Diary entry, April 22, 1782, in ibid., 5:33.

  Chapter Three

  1 The American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s Army. 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, trans. and ed. Howard C. Rice and Anne S. K. Brown (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 2:62.

  2 Sherborne Mercury (Dorset, United Kingdom), December 3, 1781.

  3 North used title “first minister” rather than “prime minister.”

  4 Horace Walpole to Countess of Upper Ossory, November 23, 1775, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 32:276; Gerald Brown, The American Secretary: The Colonial, Policy of Lord George Germain, 1775–1778 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), p. 40.

  5 Until 1782 the secretary of state for the Northern Department was responsible
for relations with the states of northern Europe. The Southern Department oversaw relations with southern Europe, the Muslim world, and the colonies.

  6 This period in English history was a time of evolving roles and titles. The term prime minister was not yet fully in vogue, although in practice one of the ministers did take precedence over the others. Generally this was the first lord of the treasury. John P. Mackintosh, The British Cabinet (London: Stevens and Sons, 1968), pp. 64–68.

  7 Quoted in John Brooke, King George III (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 187; Stanley Weintraub, Iron Tears (New York: Free Press, 2005), pp. 304–5.

  8 Quoted in Brooke, King George III, pp. 187–88.

  9 Henry B. Wheatley, The Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall (London: Bickers and Sons, 1884), 4:398.

  10 Quoted in ibid., 4:401.

  11 The text of the speech is in Journals of the House of Lords, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Second Session (November 27, 1781), pp. 365–66.

  12 Ibid., p. 365.

  13 Journals of the House of Commons, Fourteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Sixth Session (April 6, 1780), p. 763.

  14 Journals of the House of Commons, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Second Session (November 27, 1781), pp. 8–9.

  15 Ibid., p. 35.

  16 Journals of the House of Lords, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Second Session (November 27, 1781), pp. 12, 18, 20.

  17 Journals of the House of Commons, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Second Session (February 27, 1782), p. 310.

  18 Ibid., p. 33.

  19 Henry Seymour Conway to (?), December 20,1781, BPL, ms. 1152.

  20 William Willcox, ed., The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775–1782 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), pp. 332–50.

  21 Duke of Newcastle to Clinton, January 2, 1782, in ibid., p. 458.

  22 Philip Ranlet, The New York Loyalists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), p. 170. For a loyalist view of their ill treatment by British authorities, see Thomas Jones, History of New York During the Revolutionary War (New York: New York Historical Society, 1879), 2:chap. 5.

  23 Theodore O. Barck, New York City During the War for Independence (reprint, Port Washington, NY: I. J. Friedman, 1966), pp. 203–5.

  24 Willcox, The American Rebellion, pp. 192–93n.

  25 Jacob Judd, “Westchester County,” in The American Revolution Beyond New York City, 1763–1787, ed. Joseph Tiedeman and Eugene R. Fingerhut (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), pp. 107–26.

  26 Willcox, The American Rebellion, p. 238.

  27 Article 10 of Capitulation.

  28 Franklin to Germain, November 6, 1781, DAR, 19:208–9.

  29 Reverend James Sayre to Germain, November 8, 1781, in ibid., 19:210.

  30 Germain to Clinton, January 2, 1782, in ibid., 19:240; Clinton to Franklin, March 6, 1782 , CPNAC.

  31 Quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1967), 5:1140.

  32 William Willcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence (New York: Knopf, 1964), p. 462. The most important difference between Robertson and Clinton was their disagreement over the reestablishment of civilian government in New York. Robertson favored such a restoration, while Clinton opposed it. Robertson to Germain, March 22, 1782, DAR, 21:46–47.

  33 Alan Valentine, The British Establishment (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 1:297.

  34 Paul Reynolds, Guy Carleton: A Biography (New York: Morrow, 1980), p.1; G. P. Browne, “Guy Carleton,” DCB online. http://www.biographi.ca/index-e.html.

  35 Howard Peckham, The Colonial Wars, 1689–1762 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 222–25.

  36 Reynolds, Guy Carleton, p.2.

  37 Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2006), pp. 95, 142, 286; William M. Fowler, Empires at War (New York: Walker Books, 2005), p. 178.

  38 Reynolds, Guy Carleton, p.152; “Carleton,” DCB online.

  39 Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 425.

  40 “Carleton,” DCB online.

  41 Journal of the House of Commons, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Second Session (February 22, 1782), p. 280, (February 27, 1782), p. 330.

  42 “Carleton,” DCB online.

  43 Welbore Ellis to Carleton, March 26, 1782, CPNAC.

  44 Quoted in Brooke, King George III, p. 222.

  45 On May 2, 1782, Shelburne abolished the commissioners of trade and plantations. He took their portfolio as well. DAR, 19:3–4, 9.

  46 Ibid., 19:3.

  47 Lafayette to Hamilton, April 12, 1782, PAH, 3:71.

  48 Parker’s General Advertiser, May 30, 1782; Weintraub, Iron Tears, p. 320.

  49 Quoted in “Carleton,” DCB online.

  50 Shelburne to Carleton, April 4, 1782, DAR, 21:53.

  51 It is interesting to speculate what Washington’s reaction might have been if he had seen Carleton’s orders. The chance to attack and take another British army might have been too great a temptation to resist.

  52 Shelburne to Carleton, April 4, 1781, CPNAC.

  53 “Maurice Morgann,” DCB online.

  54 Ibid.

  55 Ibid.

  56 Commission to Brook Watson, March 17, 1782, DAR, 19:269.

  57 Paul H. Smith, “Sir Guy Carleton Peace Negotiations and the Evacuation of New York,” Canadian Historical Review 50 (1969), p. 247.

  Chapter Four

  1 William Heath, Memoirs of Major General William Heath by Himself, ed. William Abbatt (New York: William Abbatt, 1901), p. 1.

  2 GW to Heath, March 3, 1777, FW, 7:232; Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1951), 3:389, 4:216, 367, 384n.

  3 Heath, Memoir, p. 299.

  4 John Crane to Knox, December 19, 1781, KP, reel 8. The shortage of clothing was aggravated by the British capture of the French ship Marquis de Lafayette bound for Boston with a cargo of uniforms. Washington to Heath, February 28, 1782, FW, 24:25.

  5 Lord Stirling to Washington, November 20, 1781, GWLC; Alan Valentine, Lord Stirling (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 262–63.

  6 John O. Dendy, “Frederick Haldimand and the Defence of Canada, 1778–1784.” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1972), p. 209.

  7 Haldimand to Germain, November 18, 1781, DAR, 19:217; Dendy, “Frederick Haldimand,” p. 222.

  8 Jacob Judd, “Westchester County,” in The American Revolution Beyond New York City, 1763–1787, ed. Joseph S. Tiedemann and Eugene R. Fingerhut (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), pp. 107–26.

  9 Samuel Shaw to Knox, January 31, 1782, KP, reel 8.

  10 Henry Jackson to Knox, February 28, 1782 in ibid. 8.

  11 Greene to Morris, January 24, 1782, PNG, 10:254.

  12 Heath, Memoirs, p. 306.

  13 Web site http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/revolution/itinerary/index.html.

  14 Newburgh sits at the northern end of the Hudson Highlands, sixty miles north of New York City, at a place where the river is one mile wide. The village of New Windsor is immediately to the south. Washington’s headquarters was in Newburgh, while the cantonment that his soldiers occupied in October 1782 was in New Windsor. Janet Dempsey, Washington’s Last Cantonment (Monroe, NY: Library Research Associates, 1990), p. 1.

  15 Walter C. Anthony, Washington’s Headquarters, Newburgh, New York: A History of Its Construction and Its Various Occupants (Newburgh: Newburgh Historical Society, 1928), pp. 9, 18, 26, 34; Hamilton Fish, George Washington in the Highlands (Newburgh, NY: Newburgh News, 1932), p. 7; Anthony Waite, Washington’s Headquarters, the Hasbrouck House (Albany: New York State Historic Trust, 1971), pp. 18–24. Pickering to his wife, December 2, 1781, PP reel 1.

  16 Washing
ton’s first visit to the Highlands was in November 1776 when he visited with General William Heath. In July 1778 he made his first visit to West Point. From that point to the end of the war Washington spent more than half his time in the Hudson Highlands. He remained 505 days at Newburgh (April 1, 1782–August 19, 1783), which was a longer stay than at any of his other headquarters. Fish, George Washington in the Highlands, pp. 3–22.

  17 Elizabeth Cometti, trans. and ed., Seeing America and Its Great Men: The Journal and Letters of Count Francesco dal Verme, 1783–84 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969), p.12.

  18 Hughes to Heath, March 10, 1782 quoted in Dempsey, Washington’s Last Cantonment, p. 28.

  19 Emily Stone Whiteley, Washington and His Aides de Camp (New York: Macmillan, 1936), passim; during the course of the war thirty-two officers served as aides to the commander in chief. David Humphreys, Life of General Washington, ed. Rosemarie Zagarri (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), pp. xvi, xvii.

  20 A. J. Schenkman, Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh (Charleston: History Press, 2009), pp. 31–39.

  21 Both Hasbrouck House and Mount Vernon enjoy spectacular river views.

  22 Bernhard A. Uhlendorg, ed., Revolution in America: Confidential Letters and Journals 1776–1784 of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian Forces (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957), p. 467: Philip Ziegler, King William IV (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 39.

  23 Corey Ford, A Peculiar Service (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 296.

  24 GW to Colonel Matthias Ogden, March 28, 1782, FW, 24:91.

  25 Frank T. Reuter, “ ‘Petty Spy’ or Effective Diplomat: The Role of George Beckwith,” Journal of the Early Republic 10 (Winter 1990), pp. 471–92.

  26 Many years later Washington’s March 28 letter came into the possession of Louis McLane, the United States minister to the court of St. James (1829–31). McLane shared the letter with the king, the former Prince William Henry, who remarked, “I am obliged to General Washington for his humanity, but I’m damned glad I did not give him an opportunity of exercising it towards me.” FW, 24:91n; I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1967), 5:1145.