Did George Washington Really Prevent a Military Coup with his Glasses?
The mighty glasses of President George Washington.
Fear of Broken Promises
In 1781, the American Revolution started to reach its conclusion, and in a couple of years, America would be a separate state.
Peace negotiations began between America and Britain, and the wars came to a halt. With no warfare and talks of dissolving the army prevalent within the mainstream, there was growing unrest within soldiers that fought for the country because they were yet to be paid. They were starting not to trust the promise of being paid when the fighting stopped.
This fear was not unwarranted; the Congress had promised the army a lifetime pension after they were done serving, but a couple of years later, in 1782, this pay was stopped as a means to save money, and more promises were made of being paid at a future date. There was no certainty that this was ever going to happen, so the army started to distrust Congress.
Many soldiers also began writing to Congress independently, but that yielded no result. This was until General Henry Knox decided that enough was enough and wrote a letter with other officers’ support that threatened the Congress of drastic, bloody consequences if they took no…
