Washington [198]
The circumspect Washington showed real artistry as a spymaster. This wasn’t surprising, since he had repeatedly engaged in bluffs to fool the enemy. In April 1777 he alerted Joseph Reed that an unnamed man, recently arrested, had served as an American spy. He was such a valuable agent that Washington passed along orders that his allegiance should be reinforced by a “handsome present in money” and that he should then be released in such a way as “to give it the appearance of an accidental escape from confinement.”22 Washington’s instructions sounded knowing: “Great care must be taken so to conduct the scheme as to make the escape appear natural and real. There must be neither too much facility, nor too much refinement, for doing too little, or overacting the part, would alike beget a suspicion.” 23 In using spies as double agents to spread disinformation, Washington again seemed very expert: “It is best to keep them in a way of knowing as little of our true circumstances as possible and, in order that they may really deceive the enemy in their reports, to endeavour in the first place to deceive them.”24 On one occasion that winter, when an officer requested permission to arrest a spy, Washington shrewdly suggested that he woo the spy with a dinner invitation, then leave nearby, as if by sheer negligence, a sheet pegging the Continental Army’s strength at a grossly exaggerated number. It was one of many ways that Washington misled the enemy to conceal his own weakness.
Washington devoted far more time to the onerous task of drafting letters than to leading men into battle. Running an embryonic government, he protested to Congress that he and his aides “are confined from morn till eve, hearing and answering the applications and letters of one and another,” leaving him with “no hours for recreation.” 25 He groaned at the huge stacks of correspondence and felt besieged by supplicants for various favors. At times the enormous quantity of paperwork must have seemed more daunting than British arms. When brother Samuel asked for a portrait of him, he pleaded a lack of time to sit for a painter: “If ever you get a picture of mine, taken from the life, it must be when I am remov[e]d from the busy scenes of a camp.”26 At times, he appeared overwhelmed by bureaucratic demands, with the “business of so many different departments centering with me and by me to be handed on to Congress for their information, added to the intercourse I am obliged to keep up with the adjacent states.” 27
Washington had trained himself to write pithy, meaty letters, with little frivolity or small talk. The letters were always clear, sometimes elegant, often forceful. Even Jefferson, a fluent wordsmith, praised Washington’s correspondence, saying that “he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style.”28 Because aides drafted most of Washington’s superlative wartime letters, some historians have denied him credit. But Washington oversaw their work, first giving them the gist of messages, then editing drafts until they met his exacting standards. His