Washington: A Life

Three routed American divisions fell back “in the most broken and confused ma

With the sound of muskets still reverberating in their ears, the overpowered Americans streamed east toward Chester in an unruly flight. Lafayette recalled the confused swarm of carts, ca

Toward midnight, in a private home in Chester, Washington informed Congress of the shattering defeat. After asking Timothy Pickering to draft a note, he found the message so dispiriting that he said some “words of encouragement” were needed .21 If this was self-serving, it also reflected Washington’s firm belief that he had to uphold American morale at all costs. The management of defeat had become an essential aspect of his repertoire. Rather desperately, he tried to give a positive gloss to the terrible thrashing his men had taken, grossly understating American losses. His letter to John Hancock began, “Sir: I am sorry to inform you that in this day’s engagement, we have been obliged to leave the enemy masters of the field.”22 It continued: “Our loss of men is not, I am persuaded, very considerable; I believe much less than the enemy’s . . . Notwithstanding the misfortune of the day, I am happy to find the troops in good spirits; and I hope another time, we shall compensate for the losses now sustained.”23 This sounded, after the bloody disaster, like sheer fantasy, but the troops had fought in a spirited ma

It had been an ignoble defeat for Washington, who had failed to heed clues that might have unlocked the key to Howe’s strategy. The commander in chief had frequently seemed marginal to the battle. As Pickering said, Washington had behaved more like “a passive spectator than the commanding general.”25 Fighting on home territory near Philadelphia, he should have been able to master the terrain instead of relying on crude maps and erring scouts. The carnage and chaos of Brandywine only reinforced an image of Washington as dithering and indecisive.

Thomas Jefferson traced Washington’s strengths and weaknesses as a general to a persistent mental trait. He prepared thoroughly for battles and did extremely well if everything went according to plan. “But if deranged during the course of the action,” Jefferson noted, “if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in readjustment.”26 With a mind neither quick nor nimble, Washington lacked the gift of spontaneity and found it difficult to improvise on the spot. Baron Joha

Somewhat unfairly, congressional opinion found General Sullivan culpable for passing along bad information to Washington. The latter had the good grace to acquit Sullivan of any blame, but he didn’t admit failure readily. Dr. Benjamin Rush left an acidulous portrait of Washington’s compliant general staff after Brandywine. He saw the commander as a passive figure manipulated by Greene, Knox, and Hamilton and portrayed his generals as a rogues’ gallery of incompetent buffoons: “The first [Greene] a sycophant to the general, speculative without enterprise. The second [Sullivan] weak, vain, without dignity, fond of scribbling, in the field a mad-man. The third [Stirling] a proud, vain, lazy, ignorant drunkard. The fourth [Stephen] a sordid, boasting, cowardly sot.”29 His description of the “undisciplined and ragged” American camp was scarcely more flattering, a scene of “bad bread, no order, universal disgust.”30 It was true that Washington surrounded himself with loyal men, but he never walled himself off from contrary opinion or tried to force his views on his generals.

After the Brandywine disaster, Washington marched his battered army north across the Schuylkill River to Pe

The British didn’t claim possession of the capital for another week, giving Washington a chance to gather vital supplies. Invoking emergency powers, he sent Hamilton into the city, assisted by one hundred men, to requisition supplies. Many soldiers had shed blankets and clothing, and one thousand were barefoot; with the weather turning colder, these items rated high on the list of goods Hamilton demanded from residents during two frantic days of activity. Always skittish about employing autocratic powers in a war fought for liberty, Washington had Hamilton issue receipts to residents, in the hope they would someday be reimbursed. This highly effective operation yielded forty rounds of ammunition per soldier.

Around this time Washington received another sickening piece of news. On the night of September 20-21 British infantry had crept through the woods near Paoli and massacred American troops led by General Anthony Wayne. To ensure surprise, the British did not load their muskets but rushed forward with fixed bayonets and pitilessly slashed their sleeping victims, killing or wounding three hundred Americans. Even the British soldiers seemed appalled by the blood-smeared corpses, one saying it was “more expressive of horror than all the thunder of the artillery . . . on the day of action.”33 To worsen matters, hungry American soldiers went marauding through the countryside, terrorizing inhabitants. Tired of marching in drenching rains, they sought shelter wherever they could find it. When the Reverend Henry Muhlenberg had to bury a child at his church near Valley Forge, he found Washington’s men defiling it. An outraged Muhlenberg said that “several had placed the objects of their gluttony on the altar. In short, I saw, in miniature, the abomination of desolation in the temple.”34 If such desecration was the antithesis of the orderly behavior Washington craved, it was hard to maintain morale with meager pay and a dearth of military victories.