Washington: A Life

Although Washington admitted that Indian families were fleeing in terror, he rationalized these harsh measures as fit punishment for assorted cruelties practiced by the Indians on “our unhappy, frontier settlers, who (men, women, and children) have been deliberately murdered in a ma

“WASHINGTON WAS NEVER VERY GOOD AT WAITING,” writes the historian Edward G. Lengel, “but that is how he spent the years between 1778 and 1781.”16 The year 1779 was perhaps the war’s most sluggish, characterized by minor skirmishes in lieu of major battles. Although Washington busied himself with espionage, the Continental Army mostly settled into an indolent mode. Aside from the Indian offensive, Congress was bent upon conserving money, forcing Washington into an unwanted defensive posture as he awaited the return of the unaccountable Count d’Estaing. He found it extremely dispiriting to be suspended again in a limbo of inaction as the war dragged on interminably.

In May the major locus of fighting switched back to the Hudson River, as Sir Henry Clinton overran two American forts at Stony Point and Verplanck’s Point. This placed the enemy twelve miles south of the American fortress at West Point and made it seem as if the British might at last attain their strategic will-o’-thewisp—cutting off New England from the rest of the country. Washington hastily relocated his base of operations to New Windsor, New York, overlooking the Hudson, where he could interdict British movements on the water. Afraid that its loss would be catastrophic, he assigned top strategic priority to West Point. For his summer headquarters, he chose the commodious West Point dwelling of a well-known New York merchant named John Moore.

Washington doubted that he could ever dislodge the British from their new entrenched positions, but he had a general who warmed to the task: Anthony Wayne, a fighter by nature as much as by training. Born in Chester County, Pe

Bluff and familiar, Wayne was a great favorite among his men. Washington’s coolly reserved style of leadership was so antithetical to Wayne’s that he admired this impetuous officer with reservations. Washington found Wayne, for all his courage, imprudent and cursed by erratic judgment. As president, Washington would render this mixed appraisal of him: “More active and enterprising than judicious and cautious . . . Open to flattery, vain, easily imposed upon, and is liable to be drawn into scrapes. Too indulgent . . . to his officers and men. Whether sober, or a little addicted to the bottle, I know not.”19 On the other hand, Washington knew that Wayne was an effective missile if fired with accuracy. While crediting Wayne’s bravery, Thomas Jefferson contended that he was the sort of obstinate man who might “run his head against a wall where success was both impossible and useless.”20

Washington chose Wayne to lead a picked force of 1,350 infantry to mount a surprise raid against the new British outpost at Stony Point. The commander sketched out a plan to scale the 150-foot-high cliff overhanging the river, prompting Wayne, according to legend, to boast, “I’ll storm hell, sir, if you’ll make the plans!”21 To which Washington retorted drily, “Better try Stony Point first, general.”22 On the night of July 15 Wayne and his men approached the promontory with fixed bayonets, so as not to alert the British. When Wayne’s head was grazed by a musket ball, he cried out, “Carry me into the fort and let me die at the head of my column.”23 True to form, he pushed up the bluff and overran the fort, slaying sixty-three British soldiers and taking five hundred prisoners, in a virtuoso performance. He sent a courier to Washington to a

Washington gradually resigned himself to a lull in the fighting. Baffled by the movements of his French allies, he concluded that America needed another European power if it ever hoped to match British superiority at sea. In late September that wish was fulfilled when he received news that Spain had entered the war against England. “The declaration of Spain in favor of France has given universal joy to every Whig,” Washington wrote to Lafayette, “while the poor Tory droops like a withering flower under a declining sun.”25 It turned out that Spain was more interested in harassing the British monarchy than in fostering American independence, which might threaten Spanish territories in North America. Before long a subdued Washington realized that no sudden windfalls would result from Spanish intervention. “We ought not to deceive ourselves,” he wrote the following spring. “The maritime resources of Great Britain are more substantial and real than those of France and Spain united.”26 For this reason Washington was overjoyed by news that autumn that John Paul Jones had armed an old French ship, christened it the Bonhomme Richard in homage to Ben Franklin, and defeated the British ship Sera-pis off the English coast. In the throes of battle, Jones thundered his immortal line, “I have not yet begun to fight.”27

Aside from Stony Point and an intrepid raid led by Major Henry Lee against a feeble British garrison installed at Paulus Hook, on the west bank of the Hudson, the summer was uneventful, leaving Washington with time to savor society. With food plentiful, he could lay out ample spreads for visitors. Touches of whimsy and flashes of wit resurfaced in his letters. In mid-August Washington extended a di

Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham (sometimes a shoulder) or bacon to grace the head of the table; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot; and a small dish of greens or beans (almost imperceptible) decorates the center. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure . . . we have two beefsteak pies or dishes of crabs in addition, one on each side [of] the center dish . . . Of late, he has had the surprising luck to discover that apples will make pies. And it’s a question if, amidst the violence of his efforts, we do not get one of apples instead of having both of beef. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment and will submit to partake of it on plates, once tin, but now iron . . . I shall be happy to see them.28