George Washington, Volume I

by Henry Cabot Lodge

Again he wrote in July: "Sir Guy Carleton is using every art to soothe and lull our people into a state of security. Admiral Digby is capturing all our vessels, and suffocating as fast as possible in prison-ships all our seamen who will not enlist into the service of his Britannic Majesty; and Haldimand, with his savage allies, is scalping and burning on the frontiers." Facts always were the object of Washington's first regard, and while gentlemen on all sides were talking of peace, war was going on, and he could not understand the supineness which would permit our seamen to be suffocated, and our borderers scalped, because some people thought the war ought to be and practically was over. While the other side was fighting, he wished to be fighting too. A month later he wrote to Greene: "From the former infatuation, duplicity, and perverse system of British policy, I confess I am induced to doubt everything, to suspect everything." He could say heartily with the Trojan priest, "Quicquid id est timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." Yet again, a month later still, when the negotiations were really going forward in Paris, he wrote to McHenry: "If we are wise, let us prepare for the worst. There is nothing which will so soon produce a speedy and honorable peace as a state of preparation for war; and we must either do this, or lay our account to patch up an inglorious peace, after all the toil, blood, and treasure we have spent."

No man had done and given so much as Washington, and at the same time no other man had his love of thoroughness, and his indomitable fighting temper. He found few sympathizers, his words fell upon deaf ears, and he was left to struggle on and maintain his ground as best he might, without any substantial backing. As it turned out, England was more severely wounded than he dared to hope, and her desire for peace was real. But Washington's distrust and the active policy which he urged were, in the conditions of the moment, perfectly sound, both in a military and a political point of view. It made no real difference, however, whether he was right or wrong in his opinion. He could not get what he wanted, and he was obliged to drag through another year, fettered in his military movements, and oppressed with anxiety for the future. He longed to drive the British from New York, and was forced to content himself, as so often before, with keeping his army in existence. It was a trying time, and fruitful in nothing but anxious forebodings. All the fighting was confined to skirmishes of outposts, and his days were consumed in vain efforts to obtain help from the States, while he watched with painful eagerness the current of events in Europe, down which the fortunes of his country were feebly drifting.

Among the petty incidents of the year there was one which, in its effects, gained an international importance, which has left a deep stain upon the English arms, and which touched Washington deeply. Captain Huddy, an American officer, was captured in a skirmish and carried to New York, where he was placed in confinement. Thence he was taken on April 12 by a party of Tories in the British service, commanded by Captain Lippencott, and hanged in the broad light of day on the heights near Middletown. Testimony and affidavits to the fact, which was never questioned, were duly gathered and laid before Washington. The deed was one of wanton barbarity, for which it would be difficult to find a parallel in the annals of modern warfare. The authors of this brutal murder, to our shame be it said, were of American birth, but they were fighting for the crown and wore the British uniform. England, which for generations has deafened the world with paeans of praise for her own love of fair play and for her generous humanity, stepped in here and threw the mantle of her protection over these cowardly hangmen. It has not been uncommon for wild North American savages to deliver up criminals to the vengeance of the law, but English ministers and officers condoned the murder of Huddy, and sheltered his murderers.

When the case was laid before Washington it stirred him to the deepest wrath. He submitted the facts to twenty-five of his general officers, who unanimously advised what he was himself determined upon, instant retaliation. He wrote at once to Sir Guy Carleton, and informed him that unless the murderers were given up he should be compelled to retaliate. Carleton replied that a court-martial was ordered, and some attempt was made to recriminate; but Washington pressed on in the path he had marked out, and had an English officer selected by lot and held in close confinement to await the action of the enemy. These sharp measures brought the British, as nothing else could have done, to some sense of the enormity of the crime that had been committed. Sir Guy Carleton wrote in remonstrance, and Washington replied: "Ever since the commencement of this unnatural war my conduct has borne invariable testimony against those inhuman excesses, which, in too many instances, have marked its progress. With respect to a late transaction, to which I presume your excellency alludes, I have already expressed my resolution, a resolution formed on the most mature deliberation, and from which I shall not recede." The affair dragged along, purposely protracted by the British, and the court-martial on a technical point acquitted Lippencott. Sir Guy Carleton, however, who really was deeply indignant at the outrage, wrote, expressing his abhorrence, disavowed Lippencott, and promised a further inquiry. This placed Washington in a very trying position, more especially as his humanity was touched by the situation of the unlucky hostage. The fatal lot had fallen upon a mere boy, Captain Asgill, who was both amiable and popular, and Washington was beset with appeals in his behalf, for Lady Asgill moved heaven and earth to save her son. She interested the French court, and Vergennes made a special request that Asgill should be released. Even Washington's own officers, notably Hamilton, sought to influence him, and begged him to recede. In these difficult circumstances, which were enhanced by the fact that contrary to his orders to select an unconditional prisoner, the lot had fallen on a Yorktown prisoner protected by the terms of the capitulation,[¹] he hesitated, and asked instructions from Congress. He wrote to Duane in September: "While retaliation was apparently necessary, however disagreeable in itself, I had no repugnance to the measure. But when the end proposed by it is answered by a disavowal of the act, by a dissolution of the board of refugees, and by a promise (whether with or without meaning to comply with it, I shall not determine) that further inquisition should be made into the matter, I thought it incumbent upon me, before I proceeded any farther in the matter, to have the sense of Congress, who had most explicitly approved and impliedly indeed ordered retaliation to take place. To this hour I am held in darkness."

[Footnote 1: [(return)] MS, letter to Lincoln.]

He did not long remain in doubt. The fact was that the public, as is commonly the case, had forgotten the original crime and saw only the misery of the man who was to pay the just penalty, and who was, in this instance, an innocent and vicarious sufferer. It was difficult to refuse Vergennes, and Congress, glad of the excuse and anxious to oblige their allies, ordered the release of Asgill. That Washington, touched by the unhappy condition of his prisoner, did not feel relieved by the result, it would be absurd to suppose. But he was by no means satisfied, for the murderous wrong that had been done rankled in his breast. He wrote to Vergennes: "Captain Asgill has been released, and is at perfect liberty to return to the arms of an affectionate parent, whose pathetic address to your Excellency could not fail of interesting every feeling heart in her behalf. I have no right to assume any particular merit from the lenient manner in which this disagreeable affair has terminated."

There is a perfect honesty about this which is very wholesome. He had been freely charged with cruelty, and had regarded the accusation with indifference. Now, when it was easy for him to have taken the glory of mercy by simply keeping silent, he took pains to avow that the leniency was not due to him. He was not satisfied, and no one should believe that he was, even if the admission seemed to justify the charge of cruelty. If he erred at all it was in not executing some British officer at the very start, unless Lippencott had been given up within a limited time. As it was, after delay was once permitted, it is hard to see how he could have acted otherwise than he did, but Washington was not in the habit of receding from a fixed purpose, and being obliged to do so in this case troubled him, for he knew that he did well to be angry. But the frankness of the avowal to Vergennes is a good example of his entire honesty and absolute moral fearlessness.

The matter, however, which most filled his heart and mind during these weary days of waiting and doubt was the condition and the future of his soldiers. To those persons who have suspected or suggested that Washington was cold-blooded and unmindful of others, the letters he wrote in regard to the soldiers may be commended. The man whose heart was wrung by the sufferings of the poor people on the Virginian frontier, in the days of the old French war, never in fact changed his nature. Fierce in fight, passionate and hot when his anger was stirred, his love and sympathy were keen and strong toward his army. His heart went out to the brave men who had followed him, loved him, and never swerved in their loyalty to him and to their country. Washington's affection for his men, and their devotion to him, had saved the cause of American independence more often than strategy or daring. Now, when the war was practically over, his influence with both officers and soldiers was destined to be put to its severest tests.

The people of the American colonies were self-governing in the extremest sense, that is, they were accustomed to very little government interference of any sort. They were also poor and entirely unused to war. Suddenly they found themselves plunged into a bitter and protracted conflict with the most powerful of civilized nations. In the first flush of excitement, patriotic enthusiasm supplied many defects; but as time wore on, and year after year passed, and the whole social and political fabric was shaken, the moral tone of the people relaxed. In such a struggle, coming upon an unprepared people of the habits and in the circumstances of the colonists, this relaxation was inevitable. It was likewise inevitable that, as the war continued, there should be in both national and state governments, and in all directions, many shortcomings and many lamentable errors. But for the treatment accorded the army, no such excuse can be made, and no sufficient explanation can be offered. There was throughout the colonies an inborn and a carefully cultivated dread of standing armies and military power. But this very natural feeling was turned most unreasonably against our own army, and carried in that direction to the verge of insanity. This jealousy of military power indeed pursued Washington from the beginning to the end of the Revolution. It cropped out as soon as he was appointed, and came up in one form or another whenever he was obliged to take strong measures. Even at the very end, after he had borne the cause through to triumph, Congress was driven almost to frenzy because Vergennes proposed to commit the disposition of a French subsidy to the commander-in-chief.

If this feeling could show itself toward Washington, it is easy to imagine that it was not restrained toward his officers and men, and the treatment of the soldiers by Congress and by the States was not only ungrateful to the last degree, but was utterly unpardonable. Again and again the menace of immediate ruin and the stern demands of Washington alone extorted the most grudging concessions, and saved the army from dissolution. The soldiers had every reason to think that nothing but personal fear could obtain the barest consideration from the civil power. In this frame of mind, they saw the war which they had fought and won drawing to a close with no prospect of either provision or reward for them, and every indication that they would be disbanded when they were no longer needed, and left in many cases to beggary and want. In the inaction consequent upon the victory at Yorktown, they had ample time to reflect upon these facts, and their reflections were of such a nature that the situation soon became dangerous. Washington, who had struggled in season and out of season for justice to the soldiers, labored more zealously than ever during all this period, aided vigorously by Hamilton, who was now in Congress. Still nothing was done, and in October, 1782, he wrote to the Secretary of War in words warm with indignant feeling: "While I premise that no one I have seen or heard of appears opposed to the principle of reducing the army as circumstances may require, yet I cannot help fearing the result of the measure in contemplation, under present circumstances, when I see such a number of men, goaded by a thousand stings of reflection on the past and of anticipation on the future, about to be turned into the world, soured by penury and what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved in debts, without one farthing of money to carry them home after having spent the flower of their days, and many of them their patrimonies, in establishing the freedom and independence of their country, and suffered everything that human nature is capable of enduring on this side of death.... You may rely upon it, the patriotism and long-suffering of this army are almost exhausted, and that there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at this instant. While in the field I think it may be kept from breaking into acts of outrage; but when we retire into winter-quarters, unless the storm is previously dissipated, I cannot be at ease respecting the consequences. It is high time for a peace."