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Washington was nominated by Thomas Johnson of Maryland and elected unanimously, initiating a long string of unanimous victories in his career.
Washington’s speech was rife with disclaimers; he had long ago perfected the technique of lowering expectations.
While some of Washington’s humility can be traced to political calculation, it also reflected his frank admission that he lacked the requisite experience to take on the British Empire.
In opting for two young Philadelphians from prominent families, Washington showed partiality for members of his own class and a willingness to surround himself with young men more highly educated than he was.
Ward would never warm to Washington and resented being upstaged by him.
“Before there was a nation—before there was any symbol of that nation (a flag, a Constitution, a national seal)—there was Washington.”
Despite his own hard-charging nature, Washington realized that, in view of the fragility of his army, it was sometimes better to miss a major opportunity than barge into a costly error.
The general strategy would develop into a war of attrition, with the major emphasis on preserving the Continental Army and stalling until it was in suitable condition to fight.
Nonetheless at an October war council, Washington and his generals voted unanimously “to reject all slaves and by a great majority to reject Negroes altogether.”
A month later Washington made this exclusionary policy explicit: “Neither Negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure the fatigues of the campaign are to be enlisted.”36 By lumping healthy black soldiers with boys and old men, Washington insinuated that they were inferior and could be counted on only as a last resort.
Whatever his motivations, it was a water-shed moment in American history, opening the way for approximately five thousand blacks to serve in the Continental Army, making it the most integrated American fighting force before the Vietnam War. At various times, blacks would make up anywhere from 6 to 12 percent of Washington’s army.42 Already the Revolutionary War was proving a laboratory for new ideas that operated outside the confines of the slavery system. Everyone felt the new force of liberty in whose name the colonists fought and recognized the flagrant contradiction of slavery. It was
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Common Sense was just the fillip needed by a demoralized Continental Army. In a letter to Washington, General Charles Lee pronounced the pamphlet “a masterly, irresistible performance” and said he had become a complete convert to independence.
By far the most sparkling tribute came from the pen of a young woman, Phillis Wheatley, who resided in Boston and honored Washington with a flattering ode mailed to him in late October 1775. In polished couplets reminiscent of Alexander Pope, she burnished Washington’s image: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the goddess guide. / A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine, / With gold unfading, Washington! Be thine.” The youthful poetess lauded America as “the land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!” which was the more remarkable given that Phillis
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Such effusive praise reflected the patriots’ need for a certified hero as a rallying point as much as Washington’s skill in expelling the British.
Canonizing Washington was a way to unite a country that still existed only in embryonic form.
Over the winter Washington had wondered whether his plenary authority over troops in Cambridge extended to operations in New York. Showing exemplary modesty with Congress, he had consulted John Adams, who proclaimed unequivocally that “your commission constitutes you commander of all the forces . . . and you are vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare of the service.”43 This seminal moment wiped away any doubt that Washington wielded continental power and oversaw a national army.
as if a powerful survival instinct simplified everything.
“Oh! General—an indecisive mind is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall an army.”
A consensus slowly took shape to strike again at Trenton. “It was a remarkable and very instructive success for Washington’s maturing style of quiet, consultative leadership,” notes David Hackett Fischer.35 The Trenton victory had wrought a wondrous transformation; the deliberations of Washington and his generals were now informed by a newfound confidence.
As he informed Congress, “I shall constantly bear in mind that, as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.”39 In this manner, Washington strengthened civilian authority over the military.
adversity and focus
He often tapped Morris for money because he needed to bypass Congress, which couldn’t be trusted to keep secrets.
He practiced the entire range of espionage tactics, including double agents and disinformation.
Washington was adept at identifying young talent. He wanted eager young men who worked well together, pitched in with alacrity, and showed esprit de corps.
Beneath his reserve, however, he had an excellent capacity for reading people and adapting his personality to them.
In crusading for moral reformation among his men, Washington feared that profane language would undermine discipline. He winced when soldiers swore in his presence.
He was also apt to invoke the aid of religion. During the summer of 1776 the Continental Congress granted him permission to attach chaplains to each regiment, and he encouraged attendance at divine services by rotating his own presence among them. “The blessings and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger,” he assured his men, hoping “that every officer and man will endeavor so to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”
Washington construed favorable events in the war as reflections of Providence, transforming him from an actor in a human drama into a tool of heavenly purpose.
The French foreign minister, the Count de Vergennes, who was pondering an alliance with America, claimed that “nothing struck him so much” as the Battle of Germantown. 52 He was impressed that Washington, stuck with raw recruits, had fought two consecutive battles against highly seasoned troops.
After the humiliating flight of Congress from Philadelphia, the Battle of Germantown had proved that the patriotic cause, if ailing, was far from moribund.
TWO WEEKS AFTER the Battle of Germantown, George Washington digested the bittersweet news that General Horatio Gates had trounced General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, capturing his army of five thousand men.
He knew that power held in reserve—power deployed firmly but reluctantly—was always the most effective form.
Conway Cabal.
The episode showed that, whatever Washington’s demerits as a military man, he was a consummate political infighter. With command of his tongue and temper, he had the supreme temperament for leadership compared to his scheming rivals. It was perhaps less his military skills than his character that eclipsed all competitors. Washington was dignified, circumspect, and upright, whereas his enemies seemed petty and skulking. However thin-skinned he was, he never doubted the need for legitimate criticism and contested only the devious methods of opponents. Calling criticism of error “the prerogative
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The so-called Conway Cabal taught people that Washington was tough and crafty in defending his terrain and that they tangled with him at their peril. Henceforth anyone who underestimated George Washington lived to regret the error. His skillful treatment of the “cabal” silenced his harshest critics, leaving him in unquestioned command of the Continental Army. The end of this war among Washington’s generals augured well for the larger war against the British.
skin at every stroke,” wrote Dr. James Thacher, who described how men survived this ordeal by biting on lead bullets—the origin of the term “biting the bullet.”
By winter’s end, two thousand men had perished at Valley Forge, mostly from disease and many of them in the warm spring months.
A leitmotif of his wartime letters was that the shortsighted states would come to ruin without an effective central government. Increasingly Washington took a scathing view of lax congressional leadership.
What made Valley Forge so bitterly disenchanting for Washington was that selfishness among the citizenry seemed to outweigh patriotic fervor.
What he hadn’t reckoned on was that local farmers would sell their produce to British troops in Philadelphia rather than to shivering patriots.
Broadening his critique of the political situation, Washington traced the source of the nation’s problems to the very structure of the Articles of Confederation. Deprived of taxing power, Congress had to rely on requests to the states.
As he tried to straighten out the nation’s affairs, Washington developed a fine rapport with the new president of Congress, John Jay, whom he had known since the First Continental Congress.
Like many southern slaveholders who were uncomfortable with slavery in principle, Washington hoped the institution would wither away on some foggy, distant day.
Clearly slaves were just another form of salable property for Washington, and the only question was what price they fetched or what profit they yielded compared to other assets. While he had scruples about breaking up slaves’ families, he evidently had none about selling them, provided they stayed together.
One virtue of a war that dragged on for so many years was that it gave the patriots a long gestation period in which to work out the rudiments of a federal government, financial mechanisms, diplomatic alliances, and other elements of a modern nation-state.
The quarrelsome Arnold never forgot the slight he suffered in February 1777 when Congress passed him over in naming five new major generals, all brigadiers junior to him. Even after Washington helped him to become a major general, Arnold still chafed over having lost seniority to these five men, and his bitterness curdled into settled malice. He wasn’t about to be placated by anyone.
he had exploited his position as commandant to enrich himself. To clear his name, Arnold demanded a court-martial, which found him guilty of two relatively minor counts of misconduct, then let him off with a mild reprimand.
The whole episode lengthened Arnold’s extensive litany of grievances and convinced him that a conspiracy existed against him.
Unbeknownst to Washington, Arnold had by now established contact with Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army, and was prepared to assist Sir Henry Clinton in a secret plan to seize West Point.
Peggy Arnold, having befriended André during the British occupation, was a full-fledged confederate of the plot. Heavily in debt, the mercenary Arnold brokered a rich deal for his treachery, charging the British six thousand pounds sterling and a commission in the British Army for delivering West Point into their hands.
