George Washington, Volume I

by Henry Cabot Lodge

From the redoubts, whither he had come at the sound of the firing, Washington watched the slaughter and disaster in grim silence. He saw the British troops, flushed with victory, press on to the very edge of his works and then withdraw in obedience to command. The British generals had their prey so surely, as they believed, that they mercifully decided not to waste life unnecessarily by storming the works in the first glow of success. So they waited during that night and the two following days, while Washington strengthened his intrenchments, brought over reinforcements, and prepared for the worst. On the 29th it became apparent that there was a movement in the fleet, and that arrangements were being made to take the Americans in the rear and wholly cut them off. It was an obvious and sensible plan, but the British overlooked the fact that while they were lingering, summing up their victory, and counting the future as assured, there was a silent watchful man on the other side of the redoubts who for forty-eight hours never left the lines, and who with a great capacity for stubborn fighting could move, when the stress came, with the celerity and stealth of a panther.

Washington swiftly determined to retreat. It was a desperate undertaking, and a lesser man would have hesitated and been lost. He had to transport nine thousand men across a strait of strong tides and currents, and three quarters of a mile in width. It was necessary to collect the boats from a distance, and do it all within sight and hearing of the enemy. The boats were obtained, a thick mist settled down on sea and land, the water was calm, and as the night wore away, the entire army with all its arms and baggage was carried over, Washington leaving in the last boat. At daybreak the British awoke, but it was too late. They had fought a successful battle, they had had the American army in their grasp, and now all was over. The victory had melted away, and, as a grand result, they had a few hundred prisoners, a stray boat with three camp-followers, and the deserted works in which they stood. To grasp so surely the happy chance of wind and weather and make such a retreat as this was a feat of arms as great as most victories, and in it we see, perhaps as plainly as anywhere, the nerve and quickness of the man who conducted it. It is true, it was the only chance of salvation, but the great man is he who is entirely master of his opportunity, even if he have but one.

The outlook, nevertheless, was, as Washington wrote, "truly distressing." The troops were dispirited, and the militia began to disappear, as they always did after a defeat. Congress would not permit the destruction of the city, different interests pulled in different directions, conflicting opinions distracted the councils of war, and, with utter inability to predict the enemy's movements, everything led to halfway measures and to intense anxiety, while Lord Howe tried to negotiate with Congress, and the Americans waited for events. Washington, looking beyond the confusion of the moment, saw that he had gained much by delay, and had his own plan well defined. He wrote: "We have not only delayed the operations of the campaign till it is too late to effect any capital incursion into the country, but have drawn the enemy's forces to one point.... It would be presumption to draw out our young troops into open ground against their superiors both in number and discipline, and I have never spared the spade and pickaxe." Every one else, however, saw only past defeat and present peril.

The British ships gradually made their way up the river, until it became apparent that they intended to surround and cut off the American army. Washington made preparations to withdraw, but uncertainty of information came near rendering his precautions futile. September 15 the men-of-war opened fire, and troops were landed near Kip's Bay. The militia in the breastworks at that point had been at Brooklyn and gave way at once, communicating their panic to two Connecticut regiments. Washington, galloping down to the scene of battle, came upon the disordered and flying troops. He dashed in among them, conjuring them to stop, but even while he was trying to rally them they broke again on the appearance of some sixty or seventy of the enemy, and ran in all directions. In a tempest of anger Washington drew his pistols, struck the fugitives with his sword, and was only forced from the field by one of his officers seizing the bridle of his horse and dragging him away from the British, now within a hundred yards of the spot.

Through all his trials and anxieties Washington always showed the broadest and most generous sympathy. When the militia had begun to leave him a few days before, although he despised their action and protested bitterly to Congress against their employment, yet in his letters he displayed a keen appreciation of their feelings, and saw plainly every palliation and excuse. But there was one thing which he could never appreciate nor realize. It was from first to last impossible for him to understand how any man could refuse to fight, or could think of running away. When he beheld rout and cowardly panic before his very eyes, his temper broke loose and ran uncontrolled. His one thought then was to fight to the last, and he would have thrown himself single-handed on the enemy, with all his wisdom and prudence flung to the winds. The day when the commander held his place merely by virtue of personal prowess lay far back in the centuries, and no one knew it better than Washington. But the old fighting spirit awoke within him when the clash of arms sounded in his ears, and though we may know the general in the tent and in the council, we can only know the man when he breaks out from all rules and customs, and shows the rage of battle, and the indomitable eagerness for the fray, which lie at the bottom of the tenacity and courage that carried the war for independence to a triumphant close.

The rout and panic over, Washington quickly turned to deal with the pressing danger. With coolness and quickness he issued his orders, and succeeded in getting his army off, Putnam's division escaping most narrowly. He then took post at King's Bridge, and began to strengthen and fortify his lines. While thus engaged, the enemy advanced, and on the 16th Washington suddenly took the offensive and attacked the British light troops. The result was a sharp skirmish, in which the British were driven back with serious loss, and great bravery was shown by the Connecticut and Virginia troops, the two commanding officers being killed. This affair, which was the first gleam of success, encouraged the troops, and was turned to the best account by the general. Still a successful skirmish did not touch the essential difficulties of the situation, which then as always came from within, rather than without. To face and check twenty-five thousand well-equipped and highly disciplined soldiers Washington had now some twelve thousand men, lacking in everything which goes to make an army, except mere individual courage and a high average of intelligence. Even this meagre force was an inconstant and diminishing quantity, shifting, uncertain, and always threatening dissolution.

The task of facing and fighting the enemy was enough for the ablest of men; but Washington was obliged also to combat and overcome the inertness and dullness born of ignorance, and to teach Congress how to govern a nation at war. In the hours "allotted to sleep," he sat in his headquarters, writing a letter, with "blots and scratches," which told Congress with the utmost precision and vigor just what was needed. It was but one of a long series of similar letters, written with unconquerable patience and with unwearied iteration, lighted here and there by flashes of deep and angry feeling, which would finally strike home under the pressure of defeat, and bring the patriots of the legislature to sudden action, always incomplete, but still action of some sort. It must have been inexpressibly dreary work, but quite as much was due to those letters as to the battles. Thinking for other people, and teaching them what to do, is at best an ungrateful duty, but when it is done while an enemy is at your throat, it shows a grim tenacity of purpose which is well worth consideration.

In this instance the letter of September 24, read in the light of the battles of Long Island and Kip's Bay, had a considerable effect. The first steps were taken to make the army national and permanent, to raise the pay of officers, and to lengthen enlistments. Like most of the war measures of Congress, they were too late for the immediate necessity, but they helped the future. Congress, moreover, then felt that all had been done that could be demanded, and relapsed once more into confidence. "The British force," said John Adams, chairman of the board of war, "is so divided, they will do no great matter this fall." But Washington, facing hard facts, wrote to Congress with his unsparing truth on October 4: "Give me leave to say, sir, (I say it with due deference and respect, and my knowledge of the facts, added to the importance of the cause and the stake I hold in it, must justify the freedom,) that your affairs are in a more unpromising way than you seem to apprehend. Your army, as I mentioned in my last, is on the eve of its political dissolution. True it is, you have voted a larger one in lieu of it; but the season is late; and there is a material difference between voting battalions and raising men."

The campaign as seen from the board of war and from the Plains of Harlem differed widely. It is needless to say now which was correct; every one knows that the General was right and Congress wrong, but being in the right did not help Washington, nor did he take petty pleasure in being able to say, "I told you how it would be." The hard facts remained unchanged. There was the wholly patriotic but slumberous, and for fighting purposes quite inefficient Congress still to be waked up and kept awake, and to be instructed. With painful and plain-spoken repetition this work was grappled with and done methodically, and like all else as effectively as was possible.

Meanwhile the days slipped along, and Washington waited on the Harlem Plains, planning descents on Long Island, and determining to make a desperate stand where he was, unless the situation decidedly changed. Then the situation did change, as neither he nor any one else apparently had anticipated. The British warships came up the Hudson past the forts, brushing aside our boasted obstructions, destroying our little fleet, and getting command of the river. Then General Howe landed at Frog's Point, where he was checked for the moment by the good disposition of Heath, under Washington's direction. These two events made it evident that the situation of the American army was full of peril, and that retreat was again necessary. Such certainly was the conclusion of the council of war, on the 16th, acting this time in agreement with their chief. Six days Howe lingered on Frog's Point, bringing up stores or artillery or something; it matters little now why he tarried. Suffice it that he waited, and gave six days to his opponent. They were of little value to Howe, but they were of inestimable worth to Washington, who employed them in getting everything in readiness, in holding his council of war, and then on the 17th in moving deliberately off to very strong ground at White Plains. On his way he fought two or three slight, sharp, and successful skirmishes with the British. Sir William followed closely, but with much caution, having now a dull glimmer in his mind that at the head of the raw troops in front of him was a man with whom it was not safe to be entirely careless.