Washington [142]
Despite his own hard-charging nature, Washington realized that, in view of the fragility of his army, it was sometimes better to miss a major opportunity than barge into a costly error. He once lectured the Marquis de Lafayette, “No rational person will condemn you for not fighting with the odds against [you] and while so much is depending on it, but all will censure a rash step if it is not attended with success.”10 The general strategy would develop into a war of attrition, with the major emphasis on preserving the Continental Army and stalling until it was in suitable condition to fight. To John Adams, Washington later summarized the dilatory strategy as one of “time, caution, and worrying the enemy until we could be better provided with arms and other means and had better disciplined troops to carry it on.”11 Washington was often likened to the Roman general Fabius, who held Hannibal at bay through a prudent strategy of dodging encounters that played to the enemy’s strength. Nevertheless this commonly cited analogy can easily be overstated, for Washington nursed fantasies throughout the war about fighting a grand climactic battle that would end the conflict with a single stroke.
In October Washington entertained a delegation of three congressmen, headed by Benjamin Franklin, who came to ponder military plans. Washington deplored the reliance on ephemeral New England volunteers. Hoping to graduate to a dependable professional army, he requested a new force of twenty thousand men, with enlistments lasting at least one year, a plan ratified by the politicians in Philadelphia. He sensed his visitors’ eagerness for a tremendous victory before the embattled British Army could be relieved by fresh troops in the spring. That October, after King George III declared the upstart colonies to be in a state of open rebellion, the Crown replaced General Thomas Gage—ridiculed as “Blundering Tom” by his men—with the formidable Major General William Howe.12 Washington knew that all hope for reconciliation with Great Britain had now been snuffed out. Prompted by his visitors, he convened a second war council on October 18, 1775, and informed his generals that he had received “an intimation from the Congress that an attack upon Boston, if practicable, was much desired.”13 Of the eight generals, only Nathanael Greene showed enthusiasm for an attack and then only if ten thousand troops could be safely landed in Boston.
That the British were prepared to unleash patent terror to smash patriotic confidence became self-evident on October 24, when word reached camp that four British vessels had arrived at Falmouth, Massachusetts; after warning the inhabitants to evacuate, they had incinerated more than three hundred houses. Profoundly shaken, Washington told General Schuyler that the perpetrators had acted “with every circumstance of cruelty and barbarity which revenge and malice would suggest.”14 For Washington, who saw the Revolution as an old-fashioned struggle between good and evil, the Falmouth conflagration was further “proof of the diabolical designs” of the leadership in London.15
Responding to the Falmouth atrocities, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted legislation permitting American privateers to patrol the coast. With the war having idled much of the New England merchant fleet, Washington obtained congressional approval to arm several vessels as privateers that could keep one-third of the value of any British ships captured. Before long six such ships, dubbed “George Washington’s Navy,” prowled the eastern seaboard, marking the birth of the U.S. Navy.16 Afraid they might operate like lawless pirate ships, Washington demanded impeccable behavior from these privateers. “Whatever prisoners you may take, you are to take with kindness and humanity as far as is consistent with your own safety,” he