The officers, soured by their past sufferings, their present wants, and their gloomy prospects—exasperated by the neglect which they experienced and the injustice which they apprehended, manifested an irritable and uneasy temper, which required only a slight impulse to give it activity. To render this temper the more dangerous, an opinion had been insinuated that the Commander-in-Chief was restrained, by extreme delicacy, from supporting their interests with that zeal which his feelings and knowledge of their situation had inspired. Early in March a letter was received from their committee in Philadelphia, showing that the objects they solicited had not been obtained. On the 10th of that month (1783) an anonymous paper was circulated, requiring a meeting of the general and field officers at the public building on the succeeding day at 11 in the morning, and announcing the expectation that an officer from each company, and a delegate from the medical staff would attend. The object of the meeting was avowed to be, "to consider the late letter from their representatives in Philadelphia, and what measures (if any) should be adopted to obtain that redress of grievances which they seemed to have solicited in vain."
On the same day an address to the army was privately circulated, which was admirably well calculated to work on the passions of the moment, and to lead to the most desperate resolutions. This was the first of the celebrated "Newburg Addresses," since acknowledged to have been written by Gen. John Armstrong, at the request of several of the officers in camp. The following were the concluding passages of the first address:
"After a pursuit of seven long years, the object for which we set out is at length brought within our reach. Yes, my friends, that suffering courage of yours was active once. It has conducted the United States of America through a doubtful and a bloody war. It has placed her in the chair of independency; and peace returns again to bless—whom? A country willing to redress your wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services? A country courting your return to private life with tears of gratitude and smiles of admiration—longing to divide with you that independency which your gallantry has given, and those riches which your wounds have preserved? Is this the case? Or is it rather a country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your distresses? Have you not more than once suggested your wishes and made known your wants to Congress? Wants and wishes which gratitude and policy would have anticipated rather than evaded; and have you not lately, in the meek language of entreating memorials, begged from their justice what you could no longer expect from their favor? How have you been answered? Let the letter which you are called to consider tomorrow reply.
"If this, then, be your treatment while the swords you wear are necessary for the defense of America, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall sink and your strength dissipate by division? When those very swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left but your wants, infirmities, and scars? Can you then consent to be the only sufferers by this Revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can, go; and carry with you the jest of Tories and the scorn of Whigs, the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the world. Go—starve and be forgotten. But if your spirit should revolt at this, if you have sense enough to discover, and spirit enough to oppose, tyranny under whatever garb it may assume, whether it be the plain coat of republicanism or the splendid robe of royalty; if you have yet learned to discriminate between a people and a cause, between men and principles, awake; attend to your situation and redress yourselves. If the present moment be lost, every future effort is in vain, and your threats then will be as empty as your entreaties now.
"I would advise you, therefore, to come to some final opinion upon what you can bear and what you will suffer. If your determination be in any proportion to your wrongs, carry your appeal from the justice to the fears of the government. Change the milk-and-water style of your last memorial. Assume a bolder tone, decent, but lively; spirited and determined; and suspect the man who would advise to more moderation and longer forbearance. Let two or three men who can feel as well as write be appointed to draw up your last remonstrance; for I would no longer give it the suing, soft, unsuccessful epithet of memorial. Let it be represented in language that will neither dishonor you by its rudeness nor betray you by its fears, what has been promised by Congress and what has been performed; how long and how patiently you have suffered; how little you have asked, and how much of that little has been denied. Tell them that, though you were the first, and would wish to be the last to encounter danger; though despair itself can never drive you into dishonor it may drive you from the field; that the wound often irritated and never healed may at length become incurable, and that the slightest mark of indignity from Congress now must operate like the grave, and part you forever; that in any political event, the army has its alternative—if peace, that nothing shall separate you from your arms but death; if war, that, courting the auspices and inviting the directions of your illustrious leader, you will retire to some unsettled country, smile in your turn, and 'mock when their fear cometh on.' But let it represent also that should they comply with the request of your late memorial, it would make you more happy and them more respectable. That while war should continue you would follow their standard into the field, and when it came to an end, you would withdraw into the shade of private life, and give the world another subject of wonder and applause—an army victorious over its enemies, victorious over itself."
Persuaded as the officers in general were of the indisposition of government to remunerate their services, this eloquent and impassioned address, dictated by genius and by feeling, found in almost every bosom a kindred though latent sentiment prepared to receive its impression. Quick as the train to which a torch is applied, the passions caught its flame and nothing seemed to be required but the assemblage proposed for the succeeding day to communicate the conflagration to the combustible mass and to produce an explosion ruinous to the army and to the nation.
Accustomed as Washington had been to emergencies of great delicacy and difficulty, yet none had occurred which called more pressingly than the present for the utmost exertion of all his powers. He knew well that it was much easier to avoid intemperate measures than to recede from them after they have been adopted. He therefore considered it as a matter of the last importance to prevent the meeting of the officers on the succeeding day, as proposed in the anonymous summons. The sensibilities of the army were too high to admit of this being forbidden by authority, as a violation of discipline; but the end was answered in another way and without irritation. Washington, in general orders, noticed the anonymous summons, as a disorderly proceeding, not to be countenanced; and the more effectually to divert the officers from paying any attention to it, he requested them to meet for the same nominal purpose, but on a day four days subsequent to the one proposed by the anonymous writer. On the next day (March 12th), the second "Newburg Address" appeared, affecting to consider Washington as approving the first, and only changing the day of meeting. But this artifice was defeated. The intervening period was improved in preparing the officers for the adoption of moderate measures. Washington sent for one officer after another, and enlarged in private on the fatal consequences, and particularly the loss of character, which would result from the adoption of intemperate resolutions. His whole personal influence was exerted to calm the prevailing agitation. When the officers assembled (March 15, 1783), General Gates was called to the chair. Washington rose and apologized for being present, which had not been his original intention; but the circulation of anonymous addresses had imposed on him the duty of expressing his opinion of their tendency. He had committed it to writing, and, with the indulgence of his brother officers, he would take the liberty of reading it to them; and then proceeded as follows:
"GENTLEMEN.—By an anonymous summons an attempt has been made to convene you together. How inconsistent with the rules of propriety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of the army decide.
"In the moment of this summons, another anonymous production was sent into circulation, addressed more to the feelings and passions than to the reason and judgment of the army. The author of the piece is entitled to much credit for the goodness of his pen, and I could wish he had as much credit for the rectitude of his heart; for, as men see through different optics, and are induced, by the reflecting faculties of the mind, to use different means to attain the same end, the author of the address should have had more charity than to mark for suspicion the man who should recommend moderation and longer forbearance; or, in other words, who should not think as he thinks, and act as he advises. But he had another plan in view, in which candor and liberality of sentiment, regard to justice, and love of country have no part; and he was right to insinuate the darkest suspicion to effect the blackest design. That the address is drawn with great art and is designed to answer the most insidious purposes; that it is calculated to impress the mind with an idea of premeditated injustice in the sovereign power of the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must unavoidably flow from such a belief that the secret mover of this scheme, whoever he may be, intended to take advantage of the passions, while they were warmed by the recollection of past distresses, without giving time for cool, deliberate thinking, and that composure of mind which is so necessary to give dignity and stability to measures, is rendered too obvious, by the mode of conducting the business, to need other proof than a reference to the proceeding. Thus much, gentlemen, I have thought it incumbent on me to observe to you, to show upon what principles I opposed the irregular and hasty meeting which was proposed to have been held on Tuesday last, and not because I wanted a disposition to give you every opportunity, consistent with your own honor and the dignity of the army, to make known your grievances. If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country; as I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you on public duty; as I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits; as I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests. But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. If war continues, remove into the unsettled country; there establish yourselves and leave an ungrateful country to defend itself. But who are they to defend? Our wives, our children, our farms and other property, which we leave behind us? Or, in this state of hostile separation, are we to take the two first (the latter cannot be removed), to perish in a wilderness with hunger, cold, and nakedness? If peace takes place, never sheathe your swords, says he, until you have obtained full and ample justice. This dreadful alternative of either deserting our country in the extremist hour of her distress, or turning our arms against it, which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance, has something so shocking in it that humanity revolts at the idea. My God! What can this writer have in view, by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country? Rather is he not an insidious foe? some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent? And what a compliment does he pay to our understandings, when he recommends measures, in either alternative, impracticable in their nature!
"But here, gentlemen, I will drop the curtain, because it would be as imprudent in me to assign my reasons for this opinion as it would be insulting to your conception to suppose you stood in need of them. A moment's reflection will convince every dispassionate mind of the physical impossibility of carrying either proposal into execution. There might, gentlemen, be an Impropriety in my taking notice, in this address to you, of an anonymous production, but the manner in which that performance has been introduced to the army, the effect it was intended to have, together with some other circumstances, will amply justify my observations on the tendency of that writing. With respect to the advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us. The freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.