Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency (29 page)

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Authors: Logan Beirne

Tags: #American Revolution, #Founding Fathers, #George Washington, #18th Century

BOOK: Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency
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Washington had negotiated Lee’s release in a prisoner exchange following his humiliating capture at Widow White’s, but Lee was far from appreciative. Greeting Lee “as if he has been his brother,” Washington brought him back to his headquarters, held a dinner in his honor, and provided him with Martha’s sitting room to sleep. The next morning, however, Lee missed breakfast and, when he finally awoke, he appeared “as dirty as if he had been in the street all night.” It turned out he had snuck a “miserable dirty hussy” into his room that night.
5
Martha was not pleased.
Resuming his old antics, Lee was ever ready to criticize Washington. At the war council, he lambasted Washington’s plan of attack as “criminal” and convinced the council to reject it.
6
But Washington, now effectively a military dictator, ignored them. He prepared to pounce on Clinton’s rearguard at Monmouth, New Jersey.
Washington had used the winter of 1777–1778 to drill his unruly troops into a lethal fighting force. Much of the credit for this transformation falls to Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben. A veteran of the Prussian army, he claimed the title of Baron, although it was a sham based on a falsified lineage invented by his father. Due to “alleged homosexuality and accusations of his having taken improper liberties with young boys” in 1776, Steuben had resigned his post in Europe and sought work far away.
7
Agreeing to aid the American army gratis, he was soon on a ship sailing across the Atlantic.
Regardless of his questionable background, Baron von Steuben was welcomed by the Americans with open arms. What was most important to Washington was that Steuben was schooled in the cutting-edge fighting tactics of Frederick the Great, whose machinelike style Washington aspired to emulate.
8
With his beady eyes and drooping jowls, Steuben looked like a bulldog as he barked orders in his English-French-German mix. Throughout the winter, he mercilessly drilled the troops in the ways of European warfare. A gruff and short-tempered man, he unwittingly amused the American soldiers when he would exhaust his vocabulary and demand of his aide, “Come and swear for me in English; these fellows will not do what I bid them!”
9
The Americans respected his efforts and tenacity—Washington included. The troops learned to march more efficiently, fire their guns more accurately, and use their bayonets more lethally. So when the warm weather arrived, Washington was eager to put his newly trained force to the test.
On the scorching hot morning of June 28, 1778, Washington sent Lee to lead the initial assault on the British force at Monmouth. It was a natural assignment for Lee as second-in-command, but Washington kept a close eye on his perpetual detractor since he was dubious of Lee’s loyalties after his yearlong captivity. The British had treated him a little too well, showering him with wine and even allowing him to dine with officers, thus fueling suspicion that Lee had leaked intelligence to them. Washington could not count on him to fight.
With temperatures climbing to over 100
o
F before the sun even reached its zenith, the well-clothed British were finally at a disadvantage—the Americans’ rags breathed far better than the redcoats’ red-hot wool uniforms. One British soldier wrote,
We proceed for miles on a road composed of nothing but sand which scorched through our shoes with intolerable heat. The sun beating on our head with a force scarcely to be conceived in Europe and not a drop of water to assuage parching thirst. A number of soldiers were unable to support the fatigue and died on the spot.
10
 
Washington was undeterred by the blazing heat and ordered Lee to strike.
Lee, however, still opposed the action and had developed no real battle plan. His troops were in disarray as they approached the British columns on the scorched fields, and they soon began to retreat. Lee followed.
While Washington was a rather sensitive man who was usually quite unforgiving of perceived slights, he had remained surprisingly tolerant of Lee’s insubordination. But this time, Lee had gone too far. As Washington rode along to buoy the troops, he came upon a lone fifer. Perplexed, he asked the young man where he was going. The fifer answered that he had been ordered to retreat. As he had been in New York, Washington was “exceedingly surprised” and “exasperated” by this unauthorized withdrawal. He followed the trickle of retreating soldiers back towards Lee.
11
Upon finding him, Washington lost his composure. Quivering with rage, he purportedly called Lee a “damned poltroon” to his face and swore at him “till the leaves shook on the trees.”
12
Putting himself directly into the line of fire yet again, Washington took over command and rallied his troops. With the British artillery “rending up the earth all around him,” Washington courageously led another bold attack.
13
The redcoats tried again and again to pick off the American commander, but he proved as indestructible as he seemed to fancy himself—the British missed and the patriots charged.
As the 20,000 soldiers shot and bayoneted one another throughout the blazing afternoon, more men died on both sides from heatstroke than gunfire.
14
In fact, the British reported, “some preferred the shade of the trees in the direct range of shot to the more horrid tortures of thirst.”
15
The Americans’ aim had improved, however, and one such thirsty gentleman “had his arm shattered to pieces.”
16
Clocking in at over five hours of continuous fighting, it was the longest battle in the war.
By sunset, Washington’s forces had held their ground. The Battle of Monmouth was technically a draw, but the British suffered higher casualties and withdrew that night towards New York. For the first time in years, Washington was left in possession of the battlefield. He showed the world that his troops had finally gained the skill necessary to stand up to the British, and he further solidified his standing as the unquestionable leader of the American army.
On the other side, Clinton’s embarrassment over Monmouth made him ever more eager to punish the Americans. And he would soon have that opportunity presented to him by Arnold. Washington never suspected it, for he was too busy dealing with his other subversive officer, Lee.
Following his shameful retreat, Lee tried to deflect blame. But Washington had had enough. He ordered that Lee be tried before a panel of military judges for his “disgraceful” conduct.
17
The gypsy trial moved along with the Continental Army during New Jersey’s hot summer of 1778. After six weeks of often-heated proceedings, the indignant Lee was finally convicted of disobedience of orders, misbehavior before the enemy, and disrespect to the commander in chief.
18
As punishment, he was suspended from command for a year, which effectively ended his military career. Livid, Lee “publicly abused General Washington in the grossest terms,” running his mouth off to anyone who would listen.
19
Word quickly traveled back to camp. When he learned of the scurrilous attacks on his beloved leader, Washington’s aide John Laurens challenged Lee to a duel.
A relic of the Middle Ages, dueling originally developed as “judicial combat,” a means of letting God determine who is in the right by allowing him to win. It was still commonly used to settle serious disputes in the eighteenth century. When one man’s honor was grievously offended by another, he might challenge him to a duel. The man so challenged could apologize, thus ending the disagreement, or he could fight. Simply attempting to avoid the fight was seen as cowardly, and word would likely spread throughout the community.
The combatants, typically armed with large-caliber, smoothbore flintlock pistols, stood at a certain distance from one another and fired on cue. Taking more than three seconds to aim their pistols was viewed as dishonorable, so they merely raised their guns and fired rather blindly. Along with the pistols’ inherent inaccuracy, this ensured that death for either party was quite unlikely.
20
Laurens was a young southern gentleman with big eyes and a round nose. The son of a wealthy merchant and landowner, Laurens had quickly made a name for himself as an abolitionist and an ardent patriot who loyally served Washington. The reckless twenty-four-year-old set out with Washington’s most trusted aid, Alexander Hamilton, to avenge his general’s honor. Although Washington condemned the practice of dueling, it was improbable that these two men would have done this without at least tacit approval.
21
Laurens hit Lee in the side, thereby achieving his objective.
Lee retired home with his pack of dogs and died in a tavern just a few years later, in 1782. In his will, composed mere days before his passing, Lee wrote, “I desire, most earnestly, that I may not be buried in any church or church-yard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting-house, for, since I have resided in this country, I have kept so much bad company when living, that I do not choose to continue it when dead.” His wishes ignored, he was buried with military honors in the churchyard of Christ Church in Philadelphia.
22
Washington paid his respects.
Although his old rival was no longer a threat, Washington faced a far more dangerous and unexpected one. His trusted officer Arnold was beginning to scheme.
When Philadelphia was liberated that hot June of 1778, Arnold became the military supervisor of the capital’s reconstruction. During Howe’s occupation, the British had destroyed much of the city, looting buildings and burning homes as firewood. The devastation and the inhabitants’ suffering had been great, and Washington therefore turned to Arnold to ameliorate their plight. On Washington’s suggestion, Arnold was appointed military governor of Philadelphia to reestablish order and rebuild. Still hobbling around on crutches, he used the time to heal from his battle wounds.
Arnold’s wife had died three and a half years earlier, and a local socialite caught his eye. Margaret “Peggy” Shippen, age eighteen, was the beautiful youngest daughter of a prominent Philadelphia family. Descended from the founder of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) and other politically powerful men, she had a great pedigree to match her smarts. And with her blond curly locks, small pretty face, and piercing glance, she was a woman of “every engaging attraction.”
23
This lady of high society had been courted by many, but being passionate about politics, she favored military men.
Arnold was beguiled by the coquettish and intelligent young woman, two decades his junior, with “gray eyes that stared even as they smiled.”
24
Besides, marrying a Shippen would certainly enhance his social standing. While the Shippens’ wealth had faded during the war, a misfortune shared by many Tories, their aristocratic prominence had not. So as he enjoyed the extravagances of Philadelphia’s high life, he actively courted the young beauty.
Peggy was likewise attracted to the courageous soldier. She had read about his exploits since childhood and was ecstatic to be lavished with attention from such a famous war hero. She also enjoyed “the vitality that irradiated his light-blue eyes and his high-cheekboned face.”
25
Soon she was seen with him at parties around town, unable to resist his flamboyance and spendthrift ways.
Peggy’s father had misgivings about the match, however. The upper-crust, Loyalist-leaning Edward Shippen IV did not particularly care for a patriot with a money-hungry reputation, and he rejected Arnold’s first request for his daughter’s hand in marriage. But he came to appreciate Arnold’s fair treatment of Philadelphia’s Loyalists and to believe that Arnold’s apparent wealth would keep his favorite daughter happy. The Shippens eventually gave their approval, and Peggy soon married the dashing officer. Their divergent political views quickly became less of a problem: Arnold adopted her Loyalist tendencies as he grew more disgusted with his fellow patriots.
Despite his pretenses, Arnold was heavily indebted by his lavish lifestyle and by his spending of personal funds to support his military campaigns. To his great insult, Congress had balked when he demanded reimbursement for his contributions to the war effort, and so he took matters into his own hands. Always astute in turning a profit, he was purported to have “established lucrative connexions” with the Continental Army’s provision suppliers and their wives, and “made them the instruments of converting into money, his embezzlements of public stores.”
26
In one alleged scheme, he made deals with the merchants to protect their wares in exchange for a cut of the profits. In another shady deal, he was said to have used army wagons to transport his own goods for sale.
27
Even though such profiteering was commonplace among officers during the war and often overlooked, the politicians in Philadelphia seized the opportunity to disgrace Arnold. His brashness had elicited resentment from Pennsylvania’s executive council, which went so far as to charge him with “various accounts of extortion on the citizens of Philadelphia, and with peculating funds of the continent.”
28
Humiliated, Arnold stood trial before a panel of military judges for these corruption charges, starting on June 1, 1799.
29
Washington privately sided with Arnold but publicly did little to aid him. This was because the great Virginian was being blackmailed.

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