The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Read online

  Take the issue of Negro troops. When we arrived in Cambridge in 1775 to take command of the American forces, the Congress sent the General an order not to use Negro troops. Even John Adams, who was an abolitionist, sent him a letter with similar advice. This was awkward because Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all had regiments with free black troops in their ranks. Naturally, being from an antislavery Quaker family, and the General being a slaveholder, I was interested in what the General would do.

  “For the moment, Josiah, nothing,” he said.

  Then the General went out and inspected the New England regiments. When he came back, I asked him if I should draft a reply to the congressional order. “Well, Josiah, these units seem to be doing well.” There followed an awkward pause, and then the General added, “Besides, we need everybody we can get to win this war.”

  With the General I had learned to never leave any doubts as to his directions, and this did not seem like a clear answer to my question. “General,” I said, “do we just ignore this order?”

  “Oh no, Josiah, we will just not enforce the order until I convince the Congress to rescind or acquiesce in my ignoring it.” And so he did, although it took him many months while the order sat at the bottom of the pile on my desk. During that time, the General continued to probe the limits of congressional patience on this subject when General Varnum of Rhode Island proposed creating two battalions, not of freed blacks but of slaves. The General did not ask for Congress’s approval but passed on the proposal to the Rhode Island governor implying, without stating, his own approval. The proposal was adopted and implemented as the General must have known it would be. When slaveholders demanded the return of their slaves from these units, the General never disagreed with their request; he just ignored it.

  I was always intrigued by the fact that the blacks who fought with the British were predominantly Southern slaves who fled their masters, while the Negroes who fought with us were those who had already won their freedom or fled their masters in the North.

  Then there was Colonel John Laurens’s mission to South Carolina. The governor of South Carolina kept complaining about the lack of troops to defend Charleston. A major reason was that only three hundred militia, the smallest number in any state, answered the call to arms. Colonel Laurens, a fellow aide at the time—and an abolitionist—explained to the General that there was a simple way to remedy the troop shortage: South Carolina, which was the only state with more slaves than whites, should simply arm and train some slaves and, as an incentive to fight the British, pay them a bounty and offer them freedom after the war. I thought the scheme sounded a bit far-fetched, but Laurens was from an old South Carolina family, and his father was the president of the Continental Congress. Laurens was twenty-five years old and very idealistic, and he really believed he could convince the South Carolina legislature to go along. I remember he urged the General’s approval of his mission on abolitionist grounds, but he was also careful to strongly appeal to the General’s desire to use all means to win the war. “If this succeeds in South Carolina, we can try it in Georgia,” he told the General. “Besides, if we don’t do it, the British will, and their troop advantage will just increase.”

  Well, that was enough for the General. While the General never explicitly approved the proposal, Laurens headed for South Carolina, which I know he would not have done without the General’s approval. The General had Alexander Hamilton, our fellow aide at the time and a close friend of Laurens, write a letter to the Congress urging support for the mission. Most of the letter Hamilton drafted sounded like the General at his most pragmatic: describing the shortage of American troops in the South to defend Charleston and harass the British and predicting that the British would arm the Negroes if we didn’t. But some of the reasons sounded more like Hamilton, a devout abolitionist: all human beings were capable of being good soldiers with good leadership and such a move may help those among us who were unfortunate and may open the door to broader emancipation.

  Congress didn’t exactly approve, but it didn’t disapprove of Laurens’s mission either, providing that arming black regiments might proceed if the state of South Carolina agreed. The General had me write a letter, which he sent to Laurens, offering encouragement: “I know of nothing which can be opposed to them [the British] with such a prospect for success as the corps you have proposed should be levied in Carolina.” Laurens tried hard and brought the issue to a vote of the South Carolina legislature, but he couldn’t convince a majority. He had some support from the up country, but the areas controlled by the big rice-plantation owners just wouldn’t go along. A year later the South Carolina governor made an offer to the British general besieging Charleston: the governor would lead South Carolina in breaking away from the Confederation if the British spared Charleston. They didn’t, and Charleston still surrendered. It was the most ignominious defeat of the war, with fifty-five hundred prisoners of war falling without a fight into British hands.

  Laurens wrote to the General that “prejudice, avarice, and pusillanimity” were the reasons for the defeat. The General wrote back to Laurens lamenting that “the spirit of freedom” had been superseded by “selfish passion.”

  I believe the General was both displeased and angered that some South Carolina leaders were more concerned about preserving slavery than gaining independence. Still, at the time of the failure of Laurens’s mission, I did not know if the General was really more angered by the South Carolina legislature’s defense of slavery or the loss of potential troops for the war effort.

  Given that the General owned a few hundred slaves and was known to have chased after slaves who fled his plantation, I was pretty sure his motivation was increasing our troop numbers, although with the General it was always hard to tell, and lately I have come to believe, for reasons I will tell you about later, that he may have been moved as much or more by idealism than pragmatism.

  It was the same way with women in the army. Everyone knew there were women serving with and in the army. The General made it very clear he did not approve of camp followers; many of these women engaged in prostitution, but many were married to the soldiers. At first he tried to stop the practice, but the General, as I said, could be quite pragmatic, and one day he remarked, “Josiah, there may be some good in all this. Draft an order that when we are in camp, regiments should have the women wash and clean whatever clothes we have and prepare the food.”

  Dealing with camp followers was one thing; finding women who disguised themselves as men in order to serve in combat was another. This happened more than you might believe. I still remember General Knox coming up to the General to inform him that a Deborah Sampson had been discovered. She had used a male alias, Robert Shurtliff, cut her hair short, and bound up her breasts. Her fellow soldiers thought it odd when she didn’t shave, but they figured the boy was just too young. Her secret would not have been discovered, except she fell ill at Yorktown, and a surgeon examined her.

  “What do I do?” asked Knox, to which the General after a pause asked, “What kind of soldier has she been?” When told she had performed ably and been wounded twice, I knew the General was thinking, “I will have one less soldier.” Finally his sense of practicality and convention prevailed and he told Knox, “Well, I suppose we shall have to discharge her. Just make sure she gets an honorable discharge and a letter of commendation.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a bemused General Knox before he trotted off.

  Then there were those women like Molly Ludwig who found themselves openly thrust into battle. Molly Pitcher, as she was known, had been delivering pitchers of water when her husband, manning an artillery piece, was shot and killed. Molly took over the piece and kept shooting. The next day General Greene presented her to the General, who got carried away and appointed her a sergeant, but I believe this was an honorary title. Lady Washington was not amused, especially when she heard about Molly’s reputation for swearing. The General was always very mindful of Lady Was
hington. Soon after, Molly was eased out of the army, although with an honorable discharge and a letter of commendation I drafted.

  People had the habit of seeing their own views reflected in the General’s views, which the General encouraged with enigmatic comments. After the General’s actions—or nonactions—on Negro and women troops, along with some ambiguous comments, I remember Abigail Adams congratulating the General on his support for abolition and women’s rights. “My good madam,” I heard the General reply, “you give me too much credit. I am only trying to win this war.” Mrs. Adams left the meeting both convinced the General shared her views and impressed with his modesty.

  Then there were the Indians. The General talked about treaties, preserving lands for the Indians, and all of us living together, but he certainly had no compunction about settlers moving west onto Indian lands. He dreamed of settling the Ohio country and bought land there. When it came to the war, however, the General saw things more pragmatically.

  “Josiah,” he said to me, “I learned in the last war that the best white men are not equal to Indians in the woods.”

  Despite what the General knew about the unease of settlers living on the frontier, he made great, albeit quiet, efforts to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes, particularly the Iroquois nation, to enlist their support. First the General tried to raise Indian regiments, and then, when that proved impractical, he tried to raise Indian irregulars. The General was not a novice at negotiating with the Indians and had brokered many such arrangements during the last war. The Indians admired the General because, I was told, they believed he had supernatural powers. They had seen him in the French and Indian War shot at from close range hundreds of times but never go down. While most of the Indian tribes were sympathetic to the British, who offered to stop western settlement, the Oneidas and many Indian bands were supporters of the independence effort. The General could be ruthless, however, with those Indians who sided with the British. He sent General John Sullivan to destroy crops and villages when some of the Iroquois nation in New York joined the British.

  The General’s desire to use any possible means to pursue the war extended beyond troops. In New York in 1776, I remember how his disapproval of a mob tearing down a huge statue of King George III changed to acceptance when he calculated how many bullets could be made out of the fallen statue. Then there was the abortive effort to kidnap Prince William Henry during the prince’s visit with the British navy in New York. Maybe this was a response to the British botched plot to assassinate the General by infiltrating his personal security guard, but I do believe he saw this as a way to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.

  Anyway, you get the idea. The General was obsessed with only one thing, and that was defeating the British and gaining independence. And when one considers the plots and counterplots, I suppose I should have expected that the General would suspect the British of writing the anonymous letter. But I had no idea what the General’s response would be.

  “Josiah, draft an order saying that this letter calling for a meeting is outside the chain of command and highly irregular. State that by my order we shall hold such a meeting not tomorrow but at noon at the Temple this Saturday to allow for mature deliberation of the subject raised in the letter.”

  At the General’s dictation, I wrote: “After mature deliberation they [the officers] will devise what further measures ought to be adopted as most rational and best calculated to attain the just and important object in view.” There followed a pause, and then the General added, “Josiah, state that the meeting will be presided over by the second-in-command.”

  I was perplexed, but not because the General had called the anonymous letter writer’s call for a meeting “irregular.” That sounded like the General, who wanted everyone to adhere to the chain of command and did not look kindly on anyone who tried to bypass him. Nor was I surprised by the call for “deliberation.” That also sounded like the General, who sought to avoid impulsive judgments. But to call for such a meeting on the same subject four days later than the original meeting seemed to support the anonymous writer’s purpose. And to state that the second-in-command should preside was mystifying. The General apparently did not want to attend the meeting, but why have General Gates preside? Surely the General knew that Gates and his circle had long tried to undermine him.

  The General could sense my confusion and peremptorily cut me off before I could ask any clarifying questions. “Josiah, draft the order immediately during dinner for my review after the aides’ meeting.” I didn’t question the General, much as I longed to. He could be quite open about requesting and taking advice, but once he issued an order, and gave what we aides called “the look,” one did not tarry. So after I showed the order I had drafted to the General later that Monday afternoon (he added an announcement of a promotion, I assume to make the order seem more routine), the General directed me to make copies and see that they were circulated that night to make sure no one attended the anonymous author’s Tuesday meeting.

  Chapter Two

  DAY TWO—TUESDAY

  The Second Anonymous Letter

  A feeble army and an empty Senate,

  Remnants of mighty battles fought in vain.

  —Marcus, Cato, Act I, Scene 1

  General Alexander McDougall was the one who delivered the second anonymous letter. Through one of our narrow windows I saw him ride up to headquarters amid the fluttering snowflakes and barge into headquarters. I always thought McDougall was a little full of himself, but he was certainly an able commander. When McDougall was in his cups, which was often, he loved to tell us of his migration from Scotland to America, his childhood on the streets of New York delivering milk, his sea years as a privateer, and what he regarded as the glorious time he served in jail as a leader of the New York Sons of Liberty. The stories were colorful, as were his vocabulary and his clothing.

  That Tuesday morning, in his thick, stuttering Scotch brogue that never left him, he called out to me, “Josiah, it’s another damn anonymous letter, and the men are reading and praising it like a Thomas Paine tract. Something is afoot. See that the General sees it at once.” With that comment, he handed me the letter, strode out, mounted, and rode off.

  I sat down to read the letter with mingled curiosity and fear. There were four pages of closely written text followed by a hurried anonymous end—“I am, &c”—where an honest man would have signed, but the writer did not. This letter was as long and eloquent as the first letter had been short and curt. By the time I reached the end, I may not have known who had written it, but I certainly had a sense of the forces we were up against. The letter had been written yesterday, probably for distribution at the meeting the General had abruptly postponed.

  I had to admit that the writer understood the mood of the army. First he introduced himself and artfully bonded with his readers as a “fellow soldier” who had endured with them the “cold hand of poverty” and the “insolence of wealth,” while having “mingled in your dangers.” He wrote of how he had remained silent, hoping that his country would serve us with “justice” and “gratitude,” but his patience was running out and that to continue his silence would be “cowardice.” Thus inciting his readers, the anonymous author set out the case for action. They had fought for seven long years and were now on the brink of achieving independence for their country. What now was their country doing for them? Was it “a country willing to redress your wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services? Will you return to private life with tears of gratitude and smiles of admiration? Or is it rather a country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your distresses? . . . And how have you been answered?”

  To the soldiers, many of whom had not been paid, clothed, or fed for large parts of the war, and to the officers who had mostly served without pay and been given only vague promises of pensions after it, the answers to these questions were self-evident. I found myself agreeing with the author, my own indignation rising.

/>   The writer recited what we all knew too well: we had meekly begged the Congress for justice to no avail. And this was while the war raged. What hope had we if we gave up our swords? Our future, said the writer, would be to “grow old in poverty, wretchedness and contempt” and to become dependent and forgotten.

  The writer then questioned the officers’ courage and manhood: “To be tame and unprovoked while injuries press upon you is more than weakness. But to look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of your own—would fix your Character and show the world how richly you deserve the chains you broke.”

  Now, the writer delivered the challenge: Do you have the spirit to revolt? Do you have “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?” He practically shouted through his pen: “Awake—attend to your Situation and redress yourselves. If the present moment be lost, every future Effort is in vain. Your threats then will be as empty as your entreaties now.”

  Having delivered the challenge, the writer pointedly advised what should not be done. There should be no more “milk and water” memorials to the Congress. He advised soldiers to “suspect the man who would advise to more moderation, and longer forbearance.”