The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [120]
But Washington could be lenient, too. On August 21, 1778, sixteen men were sentenced to death for desertion and for illegally enlisting more than once. Washington asked their officers if there was some mitigating circumstance that he could use—character, long service, sterling prior record—to spare them. He pardoned all at the last moment.
George Washington maintained a harsh policy of punishments in the army. He had been notorious for insisting on floggings of one hundred lashes during the French and Indian War. At that time he commanded troops at frontier garrisons in Virginia as head of a colonial company for the British army, which allowed as many as two thousand lashes for infractions. In 1775, Congress set thirty-nine lashes as the toll for punishment of crimes that ranged from first time desertions to striking an officer to petty theft. As the war progressed, and the need for discipline grew, the number again climbed to one hundred by the following year; this pleased Washington, who insisted that harsh punishment deterred further crime. Sometimes as many as a half-dozen men were flogged on the same day for different crimes.2
Executions were approved by Washington, too. Capital crimes included murder, excessive robbery or multiple robbery, multiple desertions (usually three), the forging of official papers to permit others to be paid fraudulent bounties, and spying for the enemy. The executions were carried out to warn others not to break the law as well as to punish offenders. They were not only witnessed by thousands of troops, but by large crowds of local residents who streamed to the execution site after hearing about it.
As a member of Washington’s personal guard, Fisher had witnessed the executions. He had also witnessed Washington’s leniency to men sentenced to die, or for other crimes, carried out with high drama to achieve maximum effect. The general often approved of court-martial punishment for a group of men for a crime, but only punished one and dropped the charges against the others. He would have a group of men who had committed a crime rounded up, but only have the ringleader arrested.
His leniency concerning executions was chilling. Soldiers would spend the morning stacking bales of hay into high walls as a backdrop for a firing squad after people throughout the area were informed that an execution would take place. Large crowds would gather and then the condemned, accompanied by a chaplain reading scriptures, would be brought forth, tied up, and blindfolded. The soldier would be placed on his knees, facing the firing squad, his hands bound behind him. The troops and townspeople gathered around the firing squad would be silent. The officer in charge of the firing squad would shout “Ready . . . Aim . . .”
Suddenly, a rider would gallop up, or an officer would step out of the crowd and shout, “Halt! A pardon from His Excellency!”3
One of the most melodramatic pardons concerned the scheduled hanging of eight men found guilty of participating in a ring that forged discharge papers and sold them to several hundred soldiers. Gallows were constructed, coffins built and placed in front of eight freshly dug graves in front of the gallows. The hanging had been advertised on broadsides and a crowd of several thousand townspeople, in addition to a brigade of soldiers, was present for the hangings. The men were led on to the newly built wooden scaffold, the thick ropes were tightened about their necks, and they then spent a few moments listening to the prayers of a chaplain. The clergyman finished his prayers, closed his bible, and stepped back. The hangman walked to the side and put his hand on the lever to spring the trap doors beneath the soldiers, who would then have their necks broken by the rope as their bodies fell or strangled to death.
“Stop! A reprieve from His Excellency!” shouted an officer, stepping out of the front lines of the crowd just as the hangman began to move the lever forward. A shudder went through the throng that had gathered. Seven men were freed and,