Burr

by Gore Vidal

  Caw! Caw! Caw!

  As Washington invented reasons for keeping me at winter quarters with nothing to do, the crowing continued and I saw that he was much shaken by it. Finally he dismissed me with “You will employ Colonel Malcolm’s men in the building of wooden cabins.” Thus was I domesticated.

  Outside headquarters, I found Colonel Hamilton. He was staring down the side of the hill to the first of the tattered tents where a number of patriots were crowing and flapping their arms. A comical sight when described on the page but downright sinister to observe in what was supposed to be an army. Interspersed with the cawing was the cry “No meat, no meat!”

  “We must do something, Burr.” This was one of the few occasions that I ever knew Hamilton not to begin a conversation with a charming salutation.

  “Yes.” I was agreeable. “We must find food for the men. It should not be hard …”

  “You don’t know these Pennsylvanians.” He shook his handsome head; a thin little fellow with patched breeches like the rest of us.

  “I would go to the nearest town and take what I needed.”

  Hamilton gave me a contemptuous look. “If we did, every last one of those ‘business men’ would take the oath to the King.”

  I was not impressed. “Then we can hang them.” I enjoyed shocking Hamilton, or rather allowing him to play at shock. Actually, he was far more devoted to demonstrations of force majeure than I. Mischievously, I asked him if he enjoyed the position I had found unendurable on Washington’s staff.

  Hamilton was oblique. “I find my place discouraging. Between the fools in the Congress and the treachery of certain of our general officers …” He launched into a scathing attack on Gates. “A vile intriguer, constantly writing to Congress behind His Excellency’s back, conspiring with officers right here in camp.”

  For the first time I learned of the so-called Conway Cabal which was, at that very moment, aiming to replace Washington with Gates. Although Hamilton was no admirer of Washington, he had elected to rise through him and so was not a part of the cabal whose leader was a newly-arrived French officer named Conway. An intelligent but impetuous man, Conway had somehow persuaded Congress to make him inspector-general of the army. This was a blow at Washington. Fortunately for His Excellency, it was also a blow at every senior officer in the army and their bitterness at Conway’s undeserved promotion enabled Washington to play on the common jealousy, thus isolating Conway.

  But the Frenchman was resourceful. A series of letters between him and Gates convinced the latter (as if he needed convincing) that he alone could defeat the British. What an extraordinary winter it was! Within the log cabins of our starving, half-clothed army there flourished intrigues of a complexity unknown at the court of the Sultan, as hundreds of letters in cipher passed back and forth between the various conspirators. Close to the centre of all this activity was—who else?—James Wilkinson.

  I saw Jamie Christmas day as he passed in splendour before my hut. In October he had been sent by Gates to Congress with the news of our army’s first and only true victory of the war, the surrender of the British general Burgoyne and his army in the north. With the good news was a request from Gates that the bearer be promoted to brigadier-general. By this peculiar criterion, if the news had been bad, Jamie would have been broken to major. Without demur or reflection, the jubilant Congress complied. The promotion of Conway had been bad enough but Wilkinson’s absurd elevation caused some twenty colonels to write in protest to Congress. I was not one of them: Jamie was still my friend. I was still his “idol.”

  We embraced in the snow. The beardless youth was now a man who looked older than his twenty years—a fortunate thing considering Gates’s folly in placing him so high. Arm in arm, we strolled to his billet. He told me of the retreat from Canada (he had joined Arnold a week after I had left). I told him of the retreat from Long Island.

  We made our way carefully among tree stumps, boulders, iced-over puddles. Everywhere the noise of axes; cursing of men. Some 1,100 cabins were going up amid a thousand small fires. So many bursts of hot orange against cold gray, resinous smoke that made eyes sting and water.

  Most veterans tend to recall their youth as one of perpetual high-blooming summer. Perhaps it was for them, but for me it was always winter. Even now I suffer at bone-remembered cold, want more fire, more heat; recall with a shudder that steep bitter Pennsylvania hill-side where half-starved men huddled close to their fires, some wearing only blankets because Congress’s money for us had been stolen by so-called suppliers. We felt abandoned. We were abandoned. Elsewhere, let it be noted, the nation’s founders spent a comfortable winter, particularly Jefferson at Monticello where, in perfect comfort and serenity, he was able amongst his books to gather his ever-so-fine wool.

  Jamie had found for himself a small out-building, well chinked with clay. A fire was going on the hearth. Two junior officers (in age at least five years our senior!) saluted and departed.

  We sat before the fire, each scratching furiously as one always did when those of lesser or greater rank were absent. With the possible exception of General Washington and his Lady, we were all of us lousy at Valley Forge.

  “Burr, you are the greatest fool ever!” This was said lovingly. “You could have been the brigadier by now if you had stayed with Washington.” Jamie offered me fire cake (a mess of flour and water baked on a hot stone).

  I ate hungrily. “I have not a clerk’s mentality.”

  “So make yourself other duties. You don’t see Troup or Hamilton copying letters.”

  “I prefer having my own regiment.”

  “I prefer a headquarters.” I could not get over the way Jamie had matured; in appearance, that is. In character he was the same odd mixture of impetuous youth and shrewd intriguer, to use General Washington’s favourite word at Valley Forge. I have often reflected how curious it was that James Wilkinson, a born politician, should rise to the very peak of the American army and I, a born soldier, to the peak of American politics. Each lived the life the other should have led.

  Soldier Burr was then swiftly brought by Politician Wilkinson into the heart of a complex intrigue. “Gates must take over the army. There’s no one else.”

  I was stunned. I had assumed that Wilkinson was with Washington and against the cabal.

  “A majority in Congress will support us.” Jamie filled his chest with air. “But for the moment no one dares bring down the Demigod.”

  “They never will.” I was sufficiently versed in Revolutionary matters to know that as bad a general as Washington was, without him there would be an even larger statue of George III in the Bowling Green.

  At this point in our affairs Congress was faced with a true dilemma. It was now plain to everyone that Washington was not—and would never be—sufficiently competent to defeat the British. Either Gates or Lee was preferable. But neither Gates nor Lee nor anyone else had the authority to keep together what army we had while holding in check the pack of thieves and rhetoricians that called itself the Congress.

  I HAVE LOOKED through the rest of Colonel Burr’s notes but I find nothing more to do with Wilkinson or the Conway Cabal.

  The next note describes Washington’s assignment of Burr to a mutinous regiment at Valley Forge.

  The Affair at the Gulf

  “GENERAL MCDOUGALL ASSURES ME that you are an excellent disciplinarian, Colonel Burr. So I give you command of this most troublesome regiment.” Washington was seated after dinner before the fire. Opposite him sat the Lady Washington, her small pleasant sly face looking out at us from under a large bonnet of the sort that was in fashion with the girls of Litchfield when I was studying law. She had a disquieting tendency to nod or shake her head for no particular reason, as though affirming or denying some inner voice.

  Several members of the General’s military family were also seated about the room, going through despatches, pretending to work. Only Hamilton simply read a book; his passion for reading was as great as my own. Like me
he usually read history or philosophy. In private, however (if I may be allowed to traduce his memory and expose him to all the world), Hamilton was a devoted reader of women’s novels, as I discovered one day at the New York Society Library when I came upon a note in his hand asking the librarian to reserve for him Edward Mortimer (by a Lady) and The Amours of Count Palviano and Eleanora. I was shocked. It was not until middle age that I allowed my own education occasionally to lapse and took to reading novels and foolish plays—in French as well as English.

  I tried to be as much at my ease as was possible with the Demigod. “The regiment is stationed at the Gulf.” This was the pass through which the British would come, if they ever did. “They lack discipline. They do not keep proper sentinels. Worse, they are prone to false and mischievous alarms.”

  Mrs. Washington nodded her head fiercely as though the more false alarms the better.

  “I shall do my best, Your Excellency.” This was the most one ever needed to say to General Washington.

  In ten days I took a disorderly and incompetent militia (formerly commanded by a brigadier) and through vigorous drilling day and night deliberately inspired a number of them to attempt mutiny.

  On the morning of the tenth day I learned that certain of the men had sworn an oath to kill me at the next assembly. During the day I took precautions. Then at midnight I ordered everyone out.

  A cold night. A bright moon. The rattle of drums. When the troops were at attention, I began my inspection, looking each soldier in the face. Half-way down the line a man leapt forward, pointed his arm at me and shouted, “Now is your time!”

  Several muskets were raised and trained upon me. “Fire!” he shouted. A flat sound of clicking: the bullets had been removed.

  I drew my sword and swung it as hard as I could at the arm still out-stretched before me. There was a thick snapping sound as metal cut through bone. He screamed. White clouds of frozen breath hid his face. Nearly severed, the arm fell to his side like a broken doll’s.

  “Take your place in line, Sir.” He obeyed, and I dismissed the company. The man’s arm was amputated and he was sent home. There were no more false alarms.

  I am told that General Washington thought seriously of court-martialling me for the dismembering of a soldier. He was dissuaded.

  It should be noted that my plan to harass Staten Island was finally accepted by Washington, who entrusted the task to our drunken general, the Scots peer Lord Stirling. Not knowing the terrain, he failed.

  Monmouth Court House

  ALTHOUGH I TEND to think of the Revolution as a time of bitter cold, my own disaster took place on one of the hottest days in the history of a long life, June 28, 1778. What the cold could not accomplish the brutal heat very nearly did. My health was lost to me for five years and any effectiveness I may have had as an officer in the field ended at the battle of Monmouth Court House.

  There was a considerable celebration in early May at Valley Forge. Not only had the army survived the winter (and Washington outwitted the cabals against him) but word came to us that the French government had officially recognised the United States of America; best of all, not only were the French sending out a fleet to help us but their navy had already begun a blockade of the English Channel. We were certain now that we would win.

  On a fine May morning Washington reviewed the troops, read the news from France, fired thirteen rounds of precious powder, arranged a good deal of food under a bower, gave a gill of rum to every man, and generally created the impression that all things were at last possible for us, not least victory.

  General Lee was on hand, recently exchanged for a British general. Some time before Lee had been mysteriously captured while visiting a lady in a tavern: mysteriously because some suspected Washington of having arranged the capture to remove a rival. Lee was brilliant, vain, fascinating, and we soon became good friends. It is significant that the only general officer I was ever close to was the only one to be court-martialled and broken. I plainly lacked Wilkinson’s doggedness in pursuing those commanders who might help me up in the world. Yet for all of Jamie’s adroitness, he finally managed to get himself involved in so many plots and counter-plots at Valley Forge that General Gates eventually threatened him with a duel while Washington, whose nose for intriguers was keen, appointed him clothier-general to the army and sent him away. In this occupation Jamie was able to steal money in small quantities which was to be expected; unfortunately, he neglected to clothe the army and was let go.

  I use the word “dogged” to describe Wilkinson’s pursuit of honour—no, place—through the cultivation of important men. But Wilkinson was positively desultory in this occupation compared to Hamilton who wanted honour for itself alone, as did the best of us.

  I have often thought what a difficult time Hamilton must have had, forced to serve a man whose mind he despised. Certainly they were an incongruous pair. The solemn slow general waddling with dignity through the camp, while like a ginger terrier at his heel frisked the young impertinent aide. Washington plainly adored Hamilton, and must never have realized to what extent the beloved youth disliked him. But then Washington was not in the habit of friendship with men or women (I have known well many of those who were close to him and I have heard of no women in his life except the wife of a neighbour in Virginia who was, according to Jemmy Madison, more spiritual sister than inamorata). What affections he might have had were tightly reined in. The decorous relationship with his wife Martha was simply an alliance between properties, and typical of Washington’s ambition, of his cold serpent’s nature.

  Also, from the age of forty-three Washington was forced not only to play but to be the god of America. This meant that he could have no friends among his contemporaries, for any one of them might have proved to be a rival. As a result, his affections tended to centre on young men who were no threat to his eminence. Watching him, however, with a contemporary and equal like Charles Lee was a marvellously droll spectacle. The usually majestic Washington would become the clumsy courtier: diffident, halting, given to sudden blushes, and then, at the right moment, a knife would flash in the dark and another rival would be stunned to discover that the dull, obsequious Virginia gentleman had effectively done for him.

  If Washington’s passion for Hamilton was plainly unrequited, it was more than compensated for by the adoration proffered him by that vivacious young Frenchman the Marquis de Lafayette, who joined our Revolution at Valley Forge. Lafayette was one of a number of glory-minded Europeans who came to help us battle tyranny. Of these foreigners, only Von Steuben had military talent. A marvellous liar who had put it about that he was lieutenant-general to Frederick the Great when the highest rank he ever held was captain, Von Steuben proved to be equally marvellous at training men.

  As for Lafayette, he was all youthful enthusiasm and charm and silliness. Incidentally, he had the most unusual head I have ever seen; it came to a point at the top like a pineapple. He worshipped Washington, who was so overwhelmed by the young man’s ardour that he allowed him nearly to lose us the battle of Monmouth Court House.

  Thinking back, we must have been a strange-looking assembly. Although Washington was in full immaculate uniform, the rest of us were in rags except Lafayette and some of the foreigners. I should note that Benedict Arnold had arrived on the scene; he was constantly hobbling along at Washington’s side, talking into his ear. Arnold had recently been passed over for promotion, which did his native bad temper no good. Gates was there, too, much chastened since the collapse of the conspiracy. And of course the burly Lord Stirling who was always attended by his aide James Monroe, whose principal task during the Revolution was to keep His Lordship’s cup filled until it was time to put him to bed. What a small group it was that fought the Revolution, founded the republic, and governed the better part of a continent for a quarter-century! And so many of the future governors were present at Valley Forge, drinking rum and water in a bower of green branches, and toasting the king of France.

 
When the celebration was done, I joined General Lee and several of his admirers in a farm-house. Dishevelled, ill-shaven, eyes a-glitter, Lee sat with feet on the fire fender, a Pomeranian dog (rather resembling him) at his feet, and regaled us with tales of his captivity at Philadelphia. “Most civil the British were to me. Particularly the senior officers. Good fellows mostly. And how they hate this war! Blame it all on their politicians. Every night we’d drink together and toast the end of the war and the hanging of the politicians; of all the politicians in the world except His Excellency.” Lee winked. He had a special way of saying “His Excellency” that conveyed in each respectful syllable absolute contempt.

  “General Clinton wants to give up Philadelphia. Move back to New York. He’s trying to persuade the ministry in London either to abandon the colonies altogether, which is not likely, or settle for holding New York indefinitely. He’s sick of the war. They all are. If he does move out of Philadelphia, I told His Excellency that we should do nothing to stop him. Quite the contrary. Build the British a bridge of gold, I said. Throw flowers in their path because we’ve won. It’s all over. The French have decided the war in our favour and the day their fleet appears off Long Island the British will go home. Unhappily, His Excellency hungers for a victory in the field. I think he has grown tired of exaggerating what happened during that skirmish at Trenton. Although he now believes that he ranks with Marlborough and Frederick, he also knows that when people speak of American victories they speak of mine and Gates’s and never, never of his. So I predict that as the British withdraw he will attempt a set battle with the British. I also predict that no matter how great our initial advantage, he will fail as he always does.” If nothing else, Lee was a good prophet.

  In June the British under General Clinton evacuated Philadelphia and began the long trek to New York City.

  I attended the staff meeting where Washington presented his plan for attacking the enemy while they were in train. As usual, he elicited agreement from nearly everyone. Only Lee made his case for allowing the British to withdraw. As much as I respected Lee, I think Washington’s strategy, in theory, was sound. But in execution it was, as always with our famous commander, a disaster—or in this case a near-disaster.