Washington: A Life

In late November 1780 Washington sent his army into winter quarters, assigning the bulk of them to West Point, while he lodged in a cramped Dutch farmhouse overlooking the Hudson River at New Windsor, New York. Depressed by this “dreary station,” he had to requisition supplies from nearby residents to set his meager table and pleaded with Congress for emergency funds.3 “We have neither money nor credit,” he wrote, “adequate to the purchase of a few boards for doors to our log huts . . . It would be well for the troops if, like chameleons, they could live upon air, or, like the bear, suck their paws for sustenance during the rigor of the approaching season.”4 Things grew so grim that Washington’s own horses were starving for want of forage.

Perhaps it was the aborted plan to kidnap Benedict Arnold that planted the idea in Washington’s mind of attempting a daring abduction of Sir Henry Clinton. On Christmas Night he gave the go-ahead to Lieutenant Colonel David Humphreys to row down the Hudson to New York with a small band of men, their oars muffled to avert detection. The nature of the top secret mission was disclosed only to participants, right before they shoved off. “I prefer a small number to a large one,” Washington said, “because it is more manageable in the night and less liable to confusion.”5 The party was supposed to land at Clinton’s house on the Hudson, disarm the guards, pinion Clinton, then hurry back up the Hudson with their high-ranking prize. In the event, a brisk wind sprang up and blew the boats into the bay, scuttling the operation.

On New Year’s Day 1781 Washington’s worst nightmares were realized when thirteen hundred troops from the Pe

The ranking officer on the scene was the valiant but hot-blooded Anthony Wayne. Washington encouraged him to stick close to his men as they marched and not brake their movement until they crossed the Delaware into Pe

The Pe

Anthony Wayne had no qualms about his action and wrote proudly to Washington that “a liberal dose of niter [gunpowder] had done the trick.”8 Washington, who could be extremely tough when necessary, didn’t second-guess Wayne’s reprisals. Months later he told Wayne, “Sudden and exemplary punishments were certainly necessary upon the new appearance of that daring and mutinous spirit which convulsed the line last winter.”9 Washington had long believed that mutinies, if not stamped out vigorously, would only multiply.

No sooner was the Pe

A critical element of the relief effort lay in soliciting fresh money from France. In December Congress drafted John Laurens as a special envoy to France, where it hoped he would team up with Benjamin Franklin to wrest a huge loan from the court at Versailles. Laurens, with Thomas Paine acting as his secretary, was to fire up French enthusiasm through compelling eyewitness accounts of the war. Because of Washington’s renown in France, Congress also hoped that a certified member of his military family would receive an effusive welcome. For three days Washington huddled with Laurens and Paine to forge a strategy. “We are at the end of our tether,” Washington told them, “and now or never our deliverance must come.”12 He deemed a foreign loan essential, since America had only a tiny moneyed elite and Congress had mismanaged its finances. If he had to keep confiscating produce from farmers, Washington feared that supporters would find the Continental Army’s methods “burdensome and oppressive,” defeating the idea of a fight for liberty.13