George Washington — Indispensable Man? (Part I)
“The idea that any one man alone can save us is too silly for any body to harbor for a moment,” John Adams wrote in 1778. I hate to disagree with one of my favorite historical curmudgeons, but it was an idea that John himself harbored when he nominated Washington to lead the Revolutionary army.
It was an idea he harbored a decade later, when he proposed that when it came to picking the new country’s first president, there was really only one choice. The same choice. If the cranky crabass who didn’t think America had an indispensable man kept choosing the same guy for all the top jobs, perhaps his protestations were a bit empty. And they may have been based in the famous Adams vanity and frustration. John Adams was a smart guy — he knew that popular movements needed a singular figurehead for the people to rally around, and he knew that the new country needed Washington. But it bothered him that Washington got all the credit for a lot of Adams’s work, and that of all the other Founding Fathers — the ones we study in civics class and the ones we hardly ever hear about.
Revolutions need dignified and seemingly perfect figureheads, but they also need stubborn nags to figure out what needs to be done and then do it. Like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, and Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock.
As Washington’s nearly inevitable successor, Adams had some big shoes to fill. If Washington was indispensable, then what was he? And how much flak was he going to take for NOT being Washington? We’ll have to see about that.
(If you’d rather listen than read, check out this episode of the History’s Trainwrecks Podcast):
https://play.acast.com/s/historys-trainwrecks/050-the-men-who-would-be-washington-part-i
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George himself knew this as well. He wasn’t immortal, and he did want to retire and go back home, especially once nasty partisan politics started to be the norm instead of the exception. Unlike a lot of other revolutionary leaders and political “firsts” in history, Washington fully intended a peaceful transfer of power to someone else, and someone else after that, and so on. America had to outlive him, so his indispensability had an expiration date.
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So why Washington? What was it about him that made him the leader of the Continental Army and later the Republic? The qualities that keep rising to the top are dignity, integrity, and gravitas. He looked and acted the part of a leader, and he had enough requisite military experience when the time came. That was all John Adams needed, who nominated Washington for command. From that point on, the rallying point of the cause wasn’t a group of guys in Philadelphia trying to get money from France and the Netherlands. Thomas Jefferson’s fame and acclaim for writing the Declaration of Independence didn’t come until years later (another thing that irked John Adams), but Washington was cheered when he had it read to his troops. Washington became the public face of the Revolution, and for awhile there, the only one. He was outside doing things while the other indispensable men like Ben Franklin and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson mainly worked behind the scenes or even out of the country.
National crisis lends greatness to the leaders who happen to be in charge at the time, as long as they rise to the occasion. It was true for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt during the Depression and World War II. Americans tend to give their trust and loyalty and admiration to their leaders easily, and Washington quickly became the great man of his time.
But it cannot be overstated that early American victories, like driving the British out of Boston in early 1776, confirmed that Washington was a good choice. This was put to the test during the disastrous battles of New York and the American retreat later that year. Had Washington had only a string of losses, there’s a good chance he would have been replaced.
It was some of his lesser-known qualities that saved him. He knew the value of daring and inspiring action, and he could be unpredictable. Getting the whole American army out of New York right under British noses, followed by his surprise Christmas capture of Trenton, were incredibly effective and rallied people back to the cause. Had Washington been just a dignified figurehead and not crossed the Delaware, the Congress would have been looking for a new commanding general by New Years, 1777.
And there were plenty of options.
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The question of who would lead the new army after Lexington and Concord was a fairly significant one. The revolutionaries didn’t intend to fail, which meant the general who led the army to eventual victory was going to be a big deal in their shiny new country.
Which is why John Hancock, the wealthy Boston merchant, he of the gigantic signature on the Declaration of Independence, showed up to the Continental Congress in 1775 with a fancy military uniform packed in his trunk. George Washington made sure to wear a military uniform he had designed himself to the congressional sessions. Before traveling to Philadelphia, Washington bought “a tomahawk, several cartouche boxes, new coverings for his holsters, and five books on the military art.”
He definitely wanted the job. Just in case you were thinking that George just sat around and waited to be drafted into service. Like all the other men gathered in Philadelphia, Washington had an ego, and ambition, and a desire for a lasting place in history. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you can deliver.
His selection as commander in chief was nearly unanimous. He was the tallest man in the room, and bore himself with a silent dignity and stature that was a marked contrast to the fast-talking, complex thinking delegates. They were politicians and revolutionaries; he was a leader.
But when it came to military exploits, and especially compared to the generals he would be facing on the British side, Washington was a “rank amateur.” “He had never commanded any unit larger than a regiment” and his early military service in the French and Indian War was marked by failures. “He had no experience deploying artillery or maneuvering cavalry and no background whatsoever in the engineering skills required to construct defensive positions or conduct sieges.”
But neither did anyone else. Wait. Hold on. There actually WAS someone with more military experience available.
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Charles Lee was a British officer who had fought in what the English called the Seven Years’ War, serving in North America. He went on to fight in the Portuguese Army and served as an aide-de-camp to the King of Poland. He later fought in the Russo-Turkish War. When it came to European-style warfare, Charles knew his stuff.
This is where that clever crank John Adams comes in. He figured that the commanding general couldn’t be a foreign-born adventurer, no matter how qualified. And Lee was known for his extravagant and scandalous lifestyle: while serving in North America he had married the daughter of a Mohawk chief and had two children with her. His temper often got the best of him: the name the Mohawks gave him was “Boiling Water.”
And I’m sure it was becoming clear that there was no way a group of untrained farmers and shopkeepers was going to be able to beat the British using classical military tactics like opposing lines of infantry facing each other across an open plain. Washington had learned this early on, but particularly during the catastrophic Braddock expedition of 1755. He had lobbied to be a part of the expedition, and saw pretty quickly that the British way of fighting was unsuited to the conditions in America. The army moved slow, with a long supply line that was easily attacked by France’s Indian allies. When the British lined up in formation in a clearing to repel an Indian attack, they were easily cut down and forced to retreat while Washington covered their rear.
Fun fact — one of the British regulars running for his life was Captain Thomas Gage, who later commanded the British troops in Boston in 1775 when his old pal George Washington showed up to take command of the Americans.
(If you’re interested in Washington and Gage’s exploits, check out History’s Trainwrecks Episode Five — Washington? Never Heard of Him).
Washington knew better than most that this war was going to be a guerilla war, with the need for the British to resupply themselves from the mother country being one of their many achilles heels. He knew, or figured out, that keeping the American army intact was more important than winning pitched battles, which he couldn’t do anyway.
So Washington got picked, but maybe Charles Lee counted on second-in-command, what with all his experience in European-style warfare. Nope — that went to Artemus Ward, who had served mainly on garrison duty during the French and Indian War and sat out the only major engagement of his career due to either gallstones or kidney stones.
Charles Lee was made third-in-command, which I’m sure was no big deal, and wouldn’t come back to haunt everyone later on in the war.
Stay tuned.
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So George Washington, it was decided, was the best man for the job. He had some early successes in Boston, but then faltered when he lost New York to the British. New York was seen as a major strategic victory for the British, as they could use the port to resupply themselves and the city occupied a spot between New England and the rest of the colonies, which could be used to divide the country in two.
Washington had made a series of blunders in the battle, word of which got back to the Congress, no doubt helped along by Charles Lee and a disgruntled captain named Aaron Burr, who had briefly served on Washington’s staff before becoming discontented with the Washington Admiration Society (and Washington himself) and transferring to Israel Putnam’s command.
The retreat from New York was a huge setback. Our hindsight is clouded by the fact that everything worked out in the end for America, but upon retreating from New York, the Revolution was as close to being over as it ever was. Washington wrote to John Hancock that “your army is on the eve of its political dissolution.” (I think it’s interesting that Washington used the word ‘political.” He may not have been a master military mind, but George knew the value of politics in a revolution).
Prevailing wisdom at the time saw two possible outcomes for the war — a series of quick victories for the Americans that convinced the British that the whole thing was way more trouble than it was worth — and there were a lot of American sympathizers in the British government — or a long and protracted war where the British went broke keeping a massive army and navy operational thousands of miles away from home.
After New York, Washington realized for certain that “a short war meant a British victory.” The only way to win was what was known as the “Fabian strategy,” named for the Roman dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who found himself facing Hannibal in the Second Punic War in 218 BC.
Hannibal was a legendary and fearsome general, the kind of bogeyman the Romans used to scare their kids into eating their vegetables and going to bed on time. The perception was that Hannibal was unbeatable, and Carthage, Rome’s enemy in the Punic War, had resources vast enough to keep huge armies in the field for a long time.
Also, they had elephants.
So Fabius adopted a strategy of avoiding pitched battles with the Carthaginians. He engaged in essentially small skirmishes, designed to disrupt the enemy’s supply lines. As it turned out, Hannibal had trouble keeping his army fed what with it being thousands of miles from home and all. Fabius kept the Carthaginians from living off the land, which eroded their morale and willingness to fight.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Scrappy Underdog Safety Tip, Number Two Hundred Fifty Seven: if you’ve got a question, history usually has the answer.
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The situation at the end of 1776 was the lowest point of the Revolution, both militarily and politically. The British capture of New York was seen as the beginning of the end for the Continentals, which dampened the enthusiasm of Britain’s enemies like France and commercial competitors like the Dutch, to support the American cause.
Many of the colonists who had been on the fence waiting to see who was winning went over to the British side. The British government, and their stubborn king, who absolutely refused to consider American independence, got the wind back in their sails regarding the whole enterprise. Victory means you don’t have to compromise any more, so the voices of support in Parliament went quiet. All that remained was to smash the Continental Army, scoop up Washington and the other Congressional rabble rousers, and bring them back to England to be tried for treason as an object lesson for any other British territories toying with the crazy idea of self-government.
When Benjamin Franklin said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “we must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately,” he meant actual hanging. By a rope. By the neck. Until dead.
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Being right there on the scene, Washington knew how bad the defeat at New York was, and he knew that the Revolution wasn’t going to last much longer. And he was starting to realize that a lot of it was his fault.
This might have sunk the career of another general, but Washington was a master of victory by retreat. He lost New York but saved the army, which everyone eventually agreed was a big deal, once they got their heads around the notion that there was no way the Continentals could have held New York anyway. But knowing he was losing points with everyone, George knew he needed something big and bold to stay on top, both to strengthen the public perception of the cause and keep the army together.
So on Christmas Day he loaded everyone up, crossed the Delaware, and smashed the Hessians at Trenton on December 26th. On January 3rd, he won a victory at Princeton.
Take that, nay-sayers.
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The Fabian strategy it is, then. No pitched battles. Surprise and retreat and attacking the British supply chain was the only path to victory. Washington’s surprise wins over the Hessians at Trenton and the British at Princeton helped come back from the devastation of New York, but he did it by defying the classic military convention of no campaigning in the winter.
George had learned during his time serving alongside the British in the French and Indian War that they were no good at non-traditional warfare and relied heavily on their creature comforts while out on campaign. He also knew that they believed in their own tactics with the kind of arrogance that success brings, which would make them slow to change things up. The Fabian strategy would work only as long as the enemy didn’t adapt to it and respond accordingly.
1776, the year of independence, ended on a high note, but 1777 was going to be pretty horrible for the Americans and their commanding general.
As a little preview, the British win quite a lot of battles and even take the American capital of Philadelphia. Washington and his shoeless and demoralized remnant of an army head to winter quarters in Valley Forge, which was also pretty horrible.
