Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  Was he an angel of mercy or of vengeance? Neither portrait rings true, and there is no record of the Gulph incident in Burr’s orderly books. It would have been virtually impossible for him to nearly chop off a soldier’s arm without some kind of military report or court-martial proceeding. Enraged officers did have outbursts, and they hit unruly soldiers, but such behavior was frowned upon.71

  Though every Burr biographer has repeated this story, the Gulph mutiny probably never happened—at least not the way it has been told. It is more likely a composite of more than one event as recorded in Burr’s orderly books. At Valley Forge, in February 1778, a Corporal Robert Haddock was tried by court-martial for “m[alevo]lent and threatening behavior to Col. Burr,” receiving only forty lashes for his death threats. Later that year, several disturbances (that did not involve Burr) resembled aspects of the Gulph incident: A private pointed a loaded musket at an officer; another officer manhandled a captain, in suppressing a riot; two lieutenants were charged with “riotous and mutinous behavior” for entering a colonel’s house with drawn swords at midnight. If Burr had been a sword-wielding colonel, slicing up a mutinous soldier, his actions would hardly have gone unnoticed.72

  A very different picture emerges in Burr’s orderly books. It is clear that he had extensive authority over the regiment, primarily because Malcolm spent so little time in camp and left most of the responsibility for discipline in Burr’s hands. The lieutenant colonel was neither especially liberal nor especially punitive. He had little difficulty, however, meting out the maximum penalty of 100 lashes to soldiers who plundered townspeople, neglected their duty, or deserted. He also knew when to show mercy. After the teenager Michael Brannon stole a shirt from Burr’s room and was sentenced to fifty lashes, the offender was ultimately spared by his commander, owing to his youth.73

  Brannon was young enough to learn from his mistake, and Burr was generally in a forgiving mood when he handled such disciplinary cases. In March 1778, at a court-martial where Burr was president, he excused the two men for wasting ammunition, but promised to “shew no lenity to any who are guilty of the same offence in the future.” Here the lesson took precedent over the lash, which is not surprising given Burr’s college and ministerial training.74

  A decidedly moralistic streak ran through Burr’s command style. He particularly appreciated the effect of public shaming, and he was not alone in this. According to the Articles of War, men found guilty of cowardly behavior could be cashiered and then publicly humiliated by having their names published in the local newspapers of their home state. Burr used shaming more than once, and always with creative results. The most humiliating punishment he ordered was for two soldiers found guilty of plundering a local family. Whipped at the injured party’s house, the men then had to ask the victim for forgiveness. A scarlet letter “P” for plunderers? Burr might actually have liked the idea.75

  He demanded honesty from his men. He had one sergeant court-martialed for lying to his face. In another instance, he promised to “particularize” those men deserving censure for poor performance rather than punish the entire unit. In his words, he wanted to do “justice to the vigilant men.” Thus, Burr as commander was a far more complicated person than the empty platitudes and exaggerated stories about him suggest. He relied on mercy as much as on punishment, and he often used didactic methods. As one soldier under his command later remarked, “every day afforded some lesson of instruction.”76

  Why is it so important to emphasize moral considerations? He was not an arrogant upstart, as many later portrayed Burr in his relationship with George Washington. Indeed, his “system” (of rewards and punishments) tends to make him appear almost as a schoolmaster, prim and priggish, as much as it might make him look honorable. Nor was he that other cliché, a flamboyant, often ruthless commander who put errant soldiers in their place. He demanded discipline, yes, but he readily accorded mercy to those he felt might learn from his generosity. Burr was a minister’s son, who was learning to lead by adhering to a system that was practical and efficient.

  “DIRTY EARWIGS”

  After occupying Philadelphia for nine months, the British left the city on June 18, 1778. By then, General Henry Clinton had replaced General Howe as commander of the British army in America. France’s entry into the war had prompted the British to yield up the city without a fight. In April, the French had recognized the independence of the United States, and the British realized they were no longer simply suppressing a colonial rebellion. To the British, a treaty between France and the United States was a declaration of war, and so they launched an attack against the French in the Caribbean. This left Clinton with a much smaller army of around 10,000 soldiers, forcing him to abandon Philadelphia for the more vital position of New York City.77

  As the British army made its overland trek through New Jersey, Washington’s army remained in close pursuit. The British moved slowly, bogged down by unseasonably hot weather. At Monmouth Court House, Clinton decided to halt. At Washington’s council of war, several of the officers around him, especially Nathanael Greene, Anthony Wayne, and Alexander Hamilton, urged the commander to provoke a general engagement. To Greene, it was needed to “preserve our reputation,” and others around Washington agreed that to allow the British to pass through the Jerseys “in tranquility” would be “humiliating.” Yet General Charles Lee and others took a more cautious approach, fearing that another defeat would do the Continental Army lasting harm.78

  Burr was part of this mass military migration, and when the two armies collided on June 28 at Monmouth, he faced his last major battle in the Revolutionary War. Suffering heatstroke, he decided afterward to retire his commission. His illness was serious, but it explains only part of Burr’s reasoning. More important, he witnessed a political inquisition that enhanced his disdain for military life. Burr watched as Lee was stripped of his command in what became the most scandalous court-martial of the war. The charges were disobeying orders, making a shameful retreat, and disrespecting his commander. With Lee gone, Washington’s leadership position was finally secure. But it was Washington’s aides, especially Hamilton and his close friend John Laurens, whom Lee called “dirty earwigs,” spreading the gossip that exacerbated this situation. Although Burr’s health was a major factor, his letters written at this time suggest it was at least as much his dislike for such machinations—what Lee termed “party business”—that hastened his departure from the army in 1779.79

  Burr was not present during the prolonged court-martial proceedings in July and August. He did, significantly, write a letter of support to Lee, a letter that unfortunately no longer exists; all we possess is Lee’s reply. After his unsuccessful appeal to Congress to overturn his conviction, Lee wrote Burr that he was “convinced the Congress would unanimously have rescinded the absurd, shameful sentence” if it had come to a vote. Realizing that the decision was made “entirely on the strength of party,” Lee saw the whole partisan proceeding as a disgrace to “national dignity.” He promised to send Burr a transcript of the trial. Interestingly, Burr kept his notes on troop preparations leading up to the Monmouth battle tucked inside one of his orderly books—notes he probably intended to use if called to testify at the court-martial.80

  Lee was not an easy man to like. He had a wagging tongue, an acerbic tone, and went on the attack with his famous wit. In his letter to Burr, he included a ribald slur on Washington. The officially chastised Lee claimed that he now planned to retire to Virginia, the home state as well of Washington, and there he would “learn to hoe tobacco.” Adding sardonically that tobacco cultivation was “the best school to form a consummate general,” Lee meant that America’s “great” George Washington was in fact nothing more than a farmer. How did farming, he snidely implied, give birth to military genius? Evidently, Washington was not always “first in war”—as he was later eulogized by another Lee—in the minds of those who served.81

  Satire was a dangerous weapon.
And Lee was not the first officer to fall because of his poison-tipped pen. While at Valley Forge, Washington expressed fears of conspiracies that crested at the time of the supposed “Conway cabal.” Letters between two generals, Horatio Gates and Thomas Conway, seemingly critical of Washington, were made public, and Washington dismissed Conway with coldness and contempt. This caused the Irishman, a former French officer, to let loose, sabotaging his own reputation with the dispatch of one sarcastic letter, foolishly addressed to Washington in a moment of frustration. Conway’s correspondence ended up before Congress, and Washington’s devoted subordinates took full advantage. Hamilton labeled Conway “vermin,” and others called him “cunning” and “dangerous.” Washington referred to the indiscreet general as “a secret enemy.”82

  Lee made the same mistake as Conway. It was his harsh letter to Washington after the battle that provoked his court-martial. Of the three charges against him (disobeying orders, “making an unnecessary, disorderly and shameful retreat,” and showing disrespect toward the commander in chief), Lee was correct in claiming that the first two charges were “absurd.” But the truth was irrelevant. He had crossed the line when he insulted Washington.83

  Lee did not accept his demotion quietly, as Putnam had done just a few months earlier. In December 1778, he published his self-defense in a prominent newspaper, and for the first time openly called into question Washington’s abilities. Perhaps the strangest twist was what came next: Washington’s aide John Laurens challenged General Lee to a duel. The unwritten, symbol-rich code duello described a protocol well known to the troops; under the code duello, Laurens had no grounds to challenge Lee. His own honor and reputation had not been questioned, but he insisted that as a member of Washington’s military family he had a right to defend his chief, in essence claiming Washington as a surrogate father. This military operetta was the height of absurdity, revealing the lengths to which the code of honor could be exploited in wartime. Burr wrote a telling letter to his sister and brother-in-law about the affair. He observed that Laurens’s challenge would not be the last, and that Lee “will probably have more of that Work to do.” He then listed several other incidents concerning honor and reputation in which “Common sense is abused” and “kicked.” Burr injected wit into the politically charged leadership squabbles when he referred ironically to “the prevailing Good Nature, Candour and Benevolence” that defined such political feuds.84

  But Burr must have smiled when a fellow officer sent him a letter Lee had written, which was then published in the newspaper. In Lee’s satirical letter, addressed to a Miss Franks, he mocked the meaning of dueling, threatening to challenge the young lady to a duel for insulting his green breeches. He was really taunting Laurens, comparing his challenge to a silly squabble over a fashion faux pas. Burr’s friend wrote that the letter “has given me a hearty laugh,” and it is a good guess that Burr found it funny, too.85

  The Lee scandal was a harbinger of things to come, though Burr, of course, could not have imagined that his own career would eventually be ruined by a gossip campaign similar in nature, and perhaps greater in force. Lee would be compared to the “famous villain of antiquity, Cataline,” a man “profligate in his morals and a parricide of his country.” Burr had early on learned how petty the gossip of ambitious men could be. At Valley Forge, he saw adult soldiers convening courts-martial over such childish grievances as a stolen pair of mittens. Burr probably aligned himself with Lee’s cause because he recognized that the general’s fall from grace resembled that of Putnam. Burr’s good friend Robert Troup aptly categorized the plight of the two generals when he coined “Putnamized” to describe an officer who foolishly invited his own disfavor and downfall.86

  After the draw at Monmouth, Burr did some reconnaissance work for Washington. He then was ordered to West Point, but before assuming his post took a furlough for illness. He cut short his leave, worrying that other officers, jealous of his cozy retreat from camp life, might gossip about him. When he assumed his new assignment at West Point, once again a squabble broke out, this time between Colonel Malcolm and General Alexander McDougall over control of the garrison, but there is no record of Burr’s position in this dispute. McDougall already had tussled with Colonel Henry Beekman Livingston in a heated court-martial that involved namecalling. At West Point, though, Burr had little time for political scandals. He found himself saddled with new duties, presiding over a series of courts-martial concerning forged passes, breaches of discipline, and insolent and riotous behavior. He enforced an order to stop his men from obtaining enlistments by getting recruits drunk in their tents. A general malaise swept through the camp, blamed on a “spirit of discord.”87

  Life at West Point had its lighter moments. Now twenty-two, Burr was frequently reminded of his boyish appearance at the garrison. One New York farmer refused to believe he was an officer. When he asked to see the lieutenant colonel, Burr identified himself. The man then assumed he had to be the colonel’s son. After the story became scuttlebutt in the garrison, Burr was jocularly dubbed “Colonel Burr’s son.”88

  Burr was hardly the only boyish officer in the Continental Army. Hamilton, and especially the marquis de Lafayette, were youthful, too, which seemed to belie their positions of authority. Yet Burr had another liability: he was not associated with a powerful general like Washington. Montgomery was dead, Putnam retired in disgrace, and Malcolm was not a leading military figure. Burr was a boy commander on his own, and that set him apart.

  His last major assignment came in January 1779, when he was transferred to New York’s Westchester County. He was now reporting to General McDougall, a New Yorker, who was similar in personality to Putnam, honest, blunt, and scrappy. McDougall may have lacked the polish of a gentleman but he had learned how to maneuver in the contentious ranks of the Continental Army. Burr respected him.

  Since the fall of 1776, Westchester had been a major theater of war. It was one of the worst areas for civilians, a “no-man’s-land” between the two major armies. War had crushed the spirit of its inhabitants; constant, unnerving activities made normal life impossible. Soldiers marched through towns, trampled fields, burned buildings, while marauding parties from both sides plundered the people without regard to their political allegiance. Loyalist troops known as the Queen’s Rangers made regular incursions, captured Whigs, pillaged houses, and depleted families of food and livestock. General McDougall realized that he lacked the resources to protect the people. Other generals refused even to try to secure the region, claiming the civilians were not worth protecting.89

  The Whig “skinners” were just as ruthless as Loyalist rangers or cowboys. Both were motivated more by greed than a desire to win the war. The skinners routinely used physical intimidation and violence to extort hidden treasures from frightened families. As one historian aptly describes these wartime bandits, “they ‘skinned’ their victims first and asked about their political affiliation later.” Yet the problem of plunder was not limited to irregular forces. Militia units were often just as ready and willing to collect as much booty as they could at the expense of the locals. Burr’s distinct loathing of all plunderers was most apparent during his duty in Westchester, when he ordered two soldiers whipped in the presence of their victim.90

  Burr was at first unaware of how corruption flourished in Westchester. During the first days of his command, he wrote to McDougall of a scouting expedition: “I blush to tell you that the party returned loaded with plunder.” He was outraged by his own men: “Sir, till now, I never wished for arbitrary power. I could gibbet half a dozen good whigs, with all the venom of an inveterate tory.” He found it unbelievable that so-called “good whigs” would plunder some of “the most friendly families.” His anger seemed directed mostly at the officers, whom he felt had planned and led the adventure. As gentlemen, they should have known better. As for the “petty rascals” caught with possessions, they deserved “pity more than indignation,” because they were “
honest men till debauched by this expedition.”91

  Burr felt he had been dropped into a pirate’s lair. Taking command under such circumstances was, he remarked, a “truly ominous commencement.” He let McDougall know that he would not tolerate any such hypocrisy, asking the general: “Is this the promised protection?” He voiced his sympathy for the victims, reading sorrow “in the face of every child I pass.” He could not but feel personally responsible, “for the whole honour of the expedition redounds to me.”92

  Most revealing of all, Burr felt that his officers had hoodwinked him. The day before the above-noted expedition, he had written McDougall that the men were clamoring to go on a scouting party. He felt it was entirely “premature” to do so, and listed all the military reasons for postponement. By the next day, however, he learned “from whence arose the ardour for scouting.” His reaction here is important: Burr felt betrayed by his men, but he just as quickly recognized his own failure to accurately read their motives. At this point in his career, far from being a schemer, Burr was highly sensitive to those who schemed.93