Washington [156]
Only in private letters did Washington allow himself to crow a little. As he told brother Jack, “No man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances than I have done . . . I have been here months together with what will scarce be believed: not thirty rounds of musket cartridges a man.” With so little ammunition, he had defeated “two and twenty regiments, the flower of the British army, when our strength have been little, if any, superior to theirs and at last have beat them in a shameful and precipitate manner out of a place the strongest by nature on this continent . . . strengthened and fortified in the best manner and at an enormous expense.”32 The modest boasting masked the fact that Washington would have preferred a bloody and decisive encounter to the self-protective British decision to sail away and fight another day.
For his feat, Washington was lionized as never before and exalted into a historic personage, collecting heaps of honors. By bestowing upon him an honorary degree, Harvard supplied the long-standing defect in his education. In a tribute drafted by John Jay, Hancock assured Washington that history would record that “under your direction an undisciplined band of husbandmen in the course of a few months became soldiers.”33 Showing steady progress in egalitarian sentiments, Washington conceded that his men had started out as a “band of undisciplined husbandmen,” but that it was “to their bravery and attention to their duty that I am indebted for that success which procured for me the only reward I wish to receive, the affection and esteem of my countrymen.”34 This was a notable step forward for a man who had so recently wrinkled his nose at the filthy, money-grubbing New England troops. The Massachusetts politician Josiah Quincy assured Washington that his name would be “handed down to posterity with the illustrious character of being the savior of your country.”35 Such effusive praise reflected the patriots’ need for a certified hero as a rallying point as much as Washington’s skill in expelling the British. Canonizing Washington was a way to unite a country that still existed only in embryonic form. Curtailing any show of vanity, Washington reacted with studied modesty and stole a line from Joseph Addison’s Cato, telling Quincy, “To obtain the applause of deserving men is a heartfelt satisfaction; to merit them is my highest wish.”36
As a way of celebrating Boston’s liberation, Congress struck its first medal, showing Washington and his generals atop Dorchester Heights. It also commissioned a portrait by Charles Willson Peale in which Washington displays none of the swagger of a triumphant general. The look in his eyes is sad, anxious, even slightly unfocused, as if his thoughts had already turned to his upcoming troubles in New York. His shoulders appear narrow, and his body widens down to a small but visible paunch. It was way too soon for a full-fledged cry of triumph, Peale seemed to suggest, and events would prove him absolutely right.
EVEN BEFORE THE BRITISH SAILED for Nova Scotia, Washington had guessed correctly that they would end up in New York, whose numerous waterways would play to the strength of the world’s mightiest navy. With the redcoats gone, he apprised Congress, he would “immediately repair to New York with the remainder of the army.”37 He knew that if the British controlled the Hudson River, they would effectively control the all-important corridor between Canada and New York City, bisecting the northern and southern colonies. New York was also a stronghold of fervent Tories, noted Washington, filled with disaffected people “who only