As an incident of the multitudinous varieties of problems that Washington had to solve may be mentioned the treatment of the American prisoners taken by the British. The Americans were regarded as rebels, having no more standing in law than traitors. If the student looks carefully at the dates of progress in the freedom of the colonies and their formation into a nation, he will see that many years of wrangle and debate took place. Nothing went by leaps. Opinions grew and they grew very slowly and uncertainly. Therefore, when a crisis came, Washington had to make momentous decisions that were not only of far reaching consequences, but that he could execute and that his people would sanction. He was not a silent man. He wrote and spoke much, thus clearing the way for action, and unifying the mind of the people on the needs and rights of the times.
An extract from a letter to the British General Gage, in the beginning of the war, shows on what grounds Washington demanded the right treatment of American prisoners, who had so far been grossly mistreated.
“They suppose,” he wrote, concerning American prisoners, “that they act from the noblest of all principles, a love of freedom and their country. But political principles, I conceive, are foreign to this point. The obligations arising from the rights of humanity, and claims of rank, are universally binding and extensive, except in cases of retaliation.
“My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are or may be in our possession exactly by the rule you shall observe toward those of ours now in your custody.”
Though General Gage’s reply was full of the words “criminals,” “rebels,” and “hanging,” the harsh treatment became generally modified as he realized that Washington meant what he said.
II. BIG BUSINESS, MONEY-MAKERS AND PATRIOTISM
Public sentiment when not aroused by immediate danger gets into action very slowly, and especially if it is divided into numerous rival sections as was the case in the colonies. The army at first consisted of two extremes, the real patriots and the many army adventurers. It was an age of travelling soldiers. Especially was there an overwhelming offer from foreign officers to go into service. To refuse them looked like ingratitude. It brought up the old saying of “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” But the wisdom and firmness of Washington was never put to better use than here. He believed that Americans should win the war. In the darkest period he said, “Put none but Americans on guard tonight.”
In one of his letters he speaks of the “hungry adventurers,” whose endless applications for commands were one of his worst annoyances. And, still more, many of these soldiers of fortune came from Europe with great recommendations and they secured powerful influences in Congress to force themselves upon Washington.
The mind of the times stood in great awe of British power, therefore it is additional credit to the mind of Washington that he had no such fear or awe toward British might. Besides, the country was always asking impossible things. Congress urged Washington to surround the enemy and cut off their supplies. They had no vision of Washington’s inadequate means. Therefore enemies arose asserting they could do what Washington was not doing, and the American army had not only the confusion of interests in its own ranks to contend with, but was between a contentious congress and a hardly more contentious British army. Washington’s methods now look so reasonable and practical that we wonder how the people could be so ignorant, blind and obstructive, but a century later than our time may show us to be stoning our prophets and killing our saviors, just as they have done through all the periods of history. It is the disastrous tribute that democracy pays to partisanship, and that humanity has always paid partisan leadership.
The malignant intrigues that tried to take advantage of the slow progress of the war, and have hungry rivals put into Washington’s place, are matters of special history. But Washington met those ill-begotten schemes with the cold indifference and calm dignity which were the unfailing measures of his life and character. Though he was sensitive, and high-spirited, he would not let that trait in his nature work to the advantage of his enemies. They worked up slights and insults all around him, but he never replied unless he dealt a stinging blow, or showed up the treacherous character of their work. Much of the rivalry developed against Washington was of sectional prejudices, but the real intelligence and patriotism of the colonies would have nothing to do with it. In all those schemes to injure Washington we see the same method in politics used on up to the present time. Newspapers and speakers distort the achievements of political opponents into the most fanatical accusations, and bewilder the voter with charges and countercharges till he feels as if he were between the firing lines of two fighting armies, for one or the other of which he must cast his votes. But “belonging to a party” is happily not the honor it once was. The good of the country is found to be, not so much in the political platform of parties but in the character of men, harmonizing with the rights of man. It is thus that the congressional resolutions and the party wrangling of Washington’s time, as in that of Lincoln, are wholly discredited in estimating the lives of those great leaders of the American mind. In its full view, the American ideal is seen to be that the man or woman who presides decently and righteously over the humanity of self or family or group is president of the human world.