The Washingtons

by Flora Fraser

  With de La Luzerne on the nineteenth had come Martha’s admirer from Havana, Don Juan de Miralles. On the day of the grand review, he was “confined at headquarters…dangerously sick of a pulmonic fever.” While the Washingtons entertained de La Luzerne below, the exotic dignitary, who had courted and been courted by Washington and Martha to such good effect, languished in an upstairs room. De La Luzerne departed for Philadelphia. In the upper chamber Don Juan lingered between life and death. To the consternation of all, he died, far from his island home and family, on the afternoon of April 28, 1780.

  Washington had the task of arranging a burial the following day. It must satisfy Don Juan’s family and the Spanish government that due honor had been accorded the deceased, though his coffin must lie in the Presbyterian church graveyard at Morristown, for want of a Catholic burial ground. As chief mourner with his aides and staff, the American commander followed the open coffin. Don Juan’s corpse had been attired in tricorne and peruke wig and scarlet coat embroidered with gold lace. A costly watch, in addition, and “a profusion of diamond rings” on the stiff fingers were among the valuables committed to the earth with the coffin, once a Spanish chaplain had commended the Don’s soul to heaven. A guard was placed to prevent looting. Washington had lost an enthusiastic supporter, though one who was never fully acknowledged by Madrid as its envoy to the United States. Don Juan’s death, coldly viewed, paved the way for the Spanish government to send official representation to America.

  It was virtually impossible, had Washington either energy or inclination, to keep his wife apprised of the many anxieties that oppressed him this winter and spring. While Miralles yet languished upstairs, the commander had written a private letter to his former aide John Laurens. Back from France, Laurens was now with General Lincoln and the 5,000 American troops who defended Charleston. Since early April, 14,000 British troops had been besieging the town. Washington opined to Laurens that the loss of the town and garrison must soon occur, and that any attempt to defend them ought to be “relinquished.” Being at a distance, Washington hesitated to give Lincoln the firm order to do so. A plea by Laurens that Washington himself head the army in the south elicited the admission that he should not “dislike the journey.” But a congressional committee was expected in camp. Besides, should Clinton and his troops take Charleston, the British commander would almost certainly return to harry the north, which must be at the ready to respond to attack. Though the “dangerous crisis” in the south was much in his thoughts during subsequent weeks, he remained at Morristown.

  Unlooked for but wholly welcome during this anxious time was the news in early May that Lafayette had returned to America from France. He wrote from Boston harbor, on April 27, that he was looking forward to being once more one of Washington’s “loving soldiers” and had “affairs of the utmost importance” to communicate. He assured Washington that “a great public good” would derive from the news he brought. On a personal note, before embarking, the marquis had commissioned the Prince de Poix to “put together a tea service,” which he meant as a gift for Martha. It was, he instructed, to be “very white, fine Sèvres, and the spoons of gold plate.”

  Lafayette reached headquarters at Morristown on May 10. He informed Washington that six French ships of the line and 6,000 French troops, destined to leave for America in early April, should be in Rhode Island by June. They had orders to participate in joint operations with Americans to seize New York. This was the prize, above all others, that Washington wished to secure.

  Lafayette left for Philadelphia to inform Congress and de La Luzerne of his news. But could the army in the north hold out until June? Would Charleston fall, as seemed all too likely? Could America provide supplies for an additional 6,000 French troops when it was hard put to supply its own army? With these questions and others Washington grappled. “Providence,” he told Lund Washington on May 19, “has always displayed its power and goodness, when clouds and thick darkness seemed ready to overwhelm us.” The hour was now come, he wrote, when they stood “much in need of another manifestation of its bounty”—adding, as though to propitiate Providence itself, “however little we deserve it.”

  Providence indeed appeared to have deserted the American army in the days that followed. Want of meat at Morristown since May 21 drove two regiments of the Connecticut Line to mutiny on the twenty-fifth. Though that revolt was efficiently suppressed by officers, Washington wrote the following day to Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut, that there was not only no meat to feed the troops but no money to pay them. There was, as there had been before, a very real danger that the army might disband. Lafayette, when he returned from Philadelphia at the end of May to resume his place at Washington’s side, wrote to Joseph Reed in Philadelphia: “An army that is reduced to nothing, that wants provisions, that has not one of the necessary means to make war…however prepared I could have been to this unhappy sight by our past distresses, I confess I had no idea of such an extremity.”

  Strenuous attempts to make Congress and the states see the absolute necessity of supplying the troops with food and pay continued, despite an unhappy diversion. An extraordinary edition of the Loyalist Royal Gazette, printed on May 30, brought intelligence that had fallen to the British on the twelfth. Others might wail and gnash their teeth. It was an outcome that Washington had expected. Now he must prepare for the return of Clinton. The British commander-in-chief sailed for New York on June 5, leaving Lord Cornwallis to command troops in the south.

  At Morristown the Washingtons soldiered on. But their tenure of the Ford house was to come to an abrupt end. While Clinton was still at sea on his way to New York, General von Knyphausen and British troops crossed during the night of June 6 from Staten Island to Elizabethtown Point. Next morning they had advanced nearly as far as Springfield, only ten miles southeast of Morristown. Martha left promptly for Philadelphia, while Washington and the troops under his command were unexpectedly forced into action. By the afternoon of the seventh, the American troops were skirmishing with the enemy and successfully forced them back. During the British retreat, a soldier shot dead a reverend’s wife where she sat, surrounded by her children, at home in Connecticut Farms.

  This atrocity, and the subsequent burning of Springfield, attracted much indignation in the patriot press. Washington could be thankful that the British had not penetrated Morristown, where the artillery as well as baggage and horses had remained. Suspecting that an attack on West Point was in the offing, he put the army under marching orders for the North River. While on his way there, he received the welcome news that Admiral Chevalier de Ternay and a French fleet had arrived at Newport. An experienced general, the Comte de Rochambeau was in command of the 5,000 troops aboard. Washington continued the journey north. Martha was making by stages for Virginia and home. They had both lived to fight another day.

  19

  Home and Headquarters, 1780–1781

  “she reminded me of the Roman matrons”

  WASHINGTON, ON JULY 11, 1780, directed Major “Light Horse Harry” Lee to dance attention on the French admiral and general at Newport, and impress “every kind of refreshment the country affords; cattle, vegetables, etc for the use of our allies.” Five days later the American commander addressed the Comte de Rochambeau directly, in a letter he entrusted to Lafayette. He begged the French general to consider “all the information” this emissary gave and “all the propositions he makes…as coming from me.” His chief wish, as he wrote to Rochambeau, was to “fix our plan of operations, and with as much secrecy as possible.” Washington concluded, “Impatiently waiting for the time when our operations will afford me the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I have the honour, etc.”

  British naval superiority frustrated Washington’s scheme for an allied attack on New York in the coming months. A second fleet with a division of French troops, 2,000 strong, with arms and armaments, was expected from Brest. While they awaited this aid, the American and French commanders separat
ely endured numerous alarums and excursions. Clinton, returned from the south, made a move on Rhode Island. Washington countered by marching on New York. The British commander speedily returned to the city.

  Constantly on the move so as not to exhaust any one district’s supplies and enrage its inhabitants, Washington wrote to his brother Samuel from “Camp near Fort Lee” on August 31: “The flattering prospect which seemed to be opening to our view in the month of May is vanishing like the morning dew.” There was no sign of the French troops and ships expected from Brest: “I despair of doing anything in this quarter this campaign.…At best the troops we have are only fed hand to mouth and for the last four or five days have been without meat.”

  Within days the Alliance frigate brought bad news from France. The British had blockaded Brest. The ships and troops promised to America were penned in. With no prospect of taking New York while the British enjoyed naval supremacy in the Sound, Washington looked to campaigns in the new year to restore the country’s fortunes. Much ceremony and profession of friendship at a meeting with Rochambeau in the latter part of September could not disguise this unpalatable fact. For the moment the allies were powerless to move against the British.

  In the south, Lord Cornwallis, whom Clinton had left in command, scored a notable victory over Horatio Gates at the battle of Camden. The British general was moving north and was dangerously near the border of North Carolina with Virginia. If he and Clinton were to succeed in joining forces in the Chesapeake, they could rout the American army of the north. Washington placed little confidence in an act passed in the Virginia Assembly to raise 3,000 men. He told Jacky on August 6: “it is our misfortune to have such kind of laws (though most important) badly executed, and such men as are raised dissipated and lost before they join the army.”

  Troubles came daily. General Benedict Arnold, recently appointed to the command of West Point, was unveiled as a traitor. He had been ready to hand the garrison over to the British. Washington rejected the plea of the British major John André, Arnold’s accomplice, that as an officer, he should be executed by firing squad. He had André hanged as a spy on October 2. Arnold himself escaped arrest and led enemy troops south the following month. His former commander was relentless in his pursuit of the turncoat, whom he wished to see court-martialed.

  There was general condemnation of Horatio Gates for the inadequate part he had played at Camden, and Washington directed Nathanael Greene to take over the command in the south. It was an admirable appointment. Victories over the British were to follow, culminating in the defeat of Cornwallis at the battle of Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, the following spring. When the British general began a march northward into Virginia in April 1781, Greene lost the advantage, but he seized the opportunity to take back undefended positions in South Carolina.

  Commenting, in early October 1780, on the “inactive campaign” in the north drawing to a close, Washington wrote to General Cadwalader: “I hoped, but I hoped in vain, that a prospect was displaying, which would enable me to fix a period of my military pursuits, and restore me to domestic life.” On the cold, wet, and tedious journey to a new encampment that followed, he informed the president of Congress on October 7 that there was not a drop of rum to be had for the men.

  Martha had reached Mount Vernon in mid-July and told her brother-in-law Bassett on the eighteenth: “I got home on Friday, and find myself so much fatigué with my ride that I shall not be able to come down to see you this summer.” Sending her compliments to Eltham neighbors, the rector of the parish church and his wife included, she asked that, instead, he bring her niece Fanny to her, and indeed her nephews too. “As soon as you can,” she urged, already thinking ahead to her return to her husband. “I suffered so much by going late that I have determined to go early in the fall before the frost set in—if Fanny does not come soon, she will have but a short time to stay with me.”

  At Abingdon, Jacky was filling the house with fine furniture and company, but he still lacked a son. Nelly gave birth this year to twin daughters. They survived long enough to be mourned when they sickened and died. Jacky had now sired six children in all without a male heir living or dead among them. On one occasion, when his eldest daughter, “Bet,” later Eliza, was four or five, he responded carelessly and even cruelly, if her later recollection is to be believed. After a convivial dinner at home, he lifted her onto the dining table. He and Dr. Rumney, who was among the guests, had the child sing “very improper” ballads to amuse the company. When Nelly Calvert Custis came in to remonstrate, Jacky replied that “his little Bet could not be injured by what she did not understand, that he had no Boy, & she must make fun for him, until he had.”

  Nelly retired, smiling, according to her daughter’s recollection, who would think no ill of her father. Eliza Parke Custis’s later imagination soared on wings when describing Jacky, her early life at Abingdon, and those events of the war that she was old enough to remember. The lack of an heir undoubtedly kept Jacky from undertaking military duties. He served his country only as a member of the Virginia Assembly.

  Eliza later affirmed that, when they were children, the Calvert family at Mount Airy favored her younger sister Patty, who was as fair and peaceable as themselves. Of Martha, her paternal grandmother, she wrote: “she had all that tenderness of manner which my father had, & when with her I was always in her arms.” Distance may have sugared her memory. Eliza recorded, too, times when she had stood by and seen Martha pack her traveling trunk: “my heart was almost broke, when she was obliged to go to the Gen.rl, & I was always talking of her & wishing her return.” To the lid interior of a trunk, she affixed a label recalling the high days when Martha returned with “the many gifts she always brought for her grandchildren.” To this extent Eliza’s colourful testimony is corroborated: during her absences from Mount Vernon in the years of conflict, Martha was always at pains to acquire dolls and toys for the children back home.

  Martha had expended much love on Jacky and on Patsy, who had required so much care. In her affections Fanny Bassett probably came before her Parke Custis granddaughters, though the youngest, Eleanor—or Nelly, like her mother—was resident at Mount Vernon. Her daughter-in-law Nelly, since becoming a mother, was less close to Martha, but a bond survived from when the two had earlier been affectionate, following Patsy’s death and during the early years of the Parke Custises’ marriage. Jacky warred with Washington for prime place in her affections. The looked-for birth of an heir to the Parke Custis estates might bring a new contender.

  At the beginning of the year, for reasons of security, Thomas Jefferson, governor of the Washingtons’ home state, had transferred all public offices and the state assembly from Williamsburg to Richmond, farther inland. From Mount Vernon, Martha wrote in early August to urge participation in an unusual fund-raising scheme on the governor’s wife, Martha Skelton Jefferson. The campaign, spearheaded by Joseph Reed’s wife, Esther, had been launched while Martha was in Philadelphia in June, on her way home. In the Pennsylvania Gazette, on June 21, “American Women” in that state were urged to contribute funds so that Washington could “procure to the army the objects of subsistence, arms or clothings, which are due to them by the continent.” Monies raised were to be regarded as an “extraordinary bounty, intended to render the condition of the soldier more pleasant.” On July 4 Esther Reed informed the commander-in-chief that “200,580 Doll. & £625.6.8 in Specie” had been donated. This amounted, “in Paper Money”—that is, the depreciated Continental currency—to $300,634. French ladies, as well as “American Women,” had contributed, Madame de La Luzerne chief among them. Lafayette pledged a generous sum on behalf of his wife the marquise in France. Washington, though grateful, resisted suggestions from Mrs. Reed that the sum raised be doled out in cash to the soldiers. Shirts, stockings, and sobriety were called for in the current crisis. He informed her of these needs in courteous language. Shirts and stockings, if not sobriety, he got.

  Mrs. Washington informed Mrs.
Jefferson that the ladies of Maryland were proving similarly generous. In her turn on August 8 the governor’s wife addressed the wife of James Madison, Sr., a wealthy Virginia planter and militia colonel. Mrs. Jefferson felt justified, she informed Eleanor Madison, by the “sanction of her [Mrs. Washington’s] letter in handing forth the scheme.” Next day the announcement of the campaign in the Virginia Gazette duly bore the name of the governor’s wife.

  In the locale of Mount Vernon, the “American Ladies” vigorously set to their task of rendering the soldier’s life pleasant. Collections were made at the different churches, following “sermons suited to the occasion.” The ladies of Alexandria, “under the lead of ‘Lady Washington,’ ” it was later asserted, contributed $75,800. Martha herself gave $20,000, equivalent to £6,000. It was listed in October, in the account book that Lund kept at Mount Vernon, as “Mrs Washington’s Bounty to the Soldiers.”

  Whether at headquarters or at home, Martha, as wife of “His Excellency,” was courted. In September she thanked Arthur Lee, former commissioner at Versailles, for “an elegant piece of china.” Gone was the servitude of the Old Dominion when Martha and George—and before them, Martha and her first husband—sent to the china merchants of London for tea services and dinner plates. In the United States of America all things French were prized, and this gift was no doubt a souvenir of Lee’s time in Paris. Martha placed no less value, at a time when resources of all kinds were scarce, on a “piece of net.” She informed Elizabeth Powel, the Washingtons’ elegant friend in Philadelphia, that she was sending it to her by a Lee emissary—either Arthur himself or another of the tribe: “Mr Lee has promised to be careful of it and to deliver it himself.” Martha, closing, begged her compliments to “Mr Powel.”