Washington [215]
In midsummer Schuyler had been blamed for the Ticonderoga debacle. In early August Congress had asked Washington to choose the next head of the army’s northern department, and with commendable restraint, he declined. He didn’t care to stir up a hornet’s nest by meddling in the decision and sought to emphasize civilian control of the military. After all, it was Washington’s reflexive restraint in seeking power that had enabled him to exercise so much of it. In this case, however, his neutrality paved the way for Congress to elect Gates. By ceding this power to Congress, Washington allowed his scheming rival to nourish the fantasy that he held an equal and independent command and was beholden only to Congress.
Washington performed another signal service for Gates that summer. Alarmed by Burgoyne’s steady progress south from Canada, Washington grew convinced that only an “active, spirited officer” could stop him, and he recommended that General Benedict Arnold assist Gates: “He is active, judicious, and brave, and an officer in whom the militia will repose great confidence.”6 Washington also steered Daniel Morgan and five hundred sharpshooters to Gates. Many assigned the true credit for Saratoga to the impetuous Arnold, who had fought “inspired by the fury of a demon,” one eyewitness said, suffering a severe gash in one leg from a musket ball.7 Despite Arnold’s contribution, Gates grew puffed up with his own power after the victory. If “old England is not by this taught a lesson of humility,” he told his wife, “then she is an obstinate old slut.”8
On October 15 Washington announced to his troops Gates’s early victory at Saratoga, the Battle of Bemis Heights. His general orders suggest that he felt self-conscious about a possible comparison with his own performance. While he hailed “the troops under the command of General Gates,” he also pointedly expressed hope that his own troops would prove “at least equal to their northern brethren in brave and intrepid exertions.”9 In a gesture pregnant with ominous implications, Gates didn’t notify Washington directly of his victory. Instead, to underscore his autonomous command, he dispatched his flamboyant young aide, Colonel James Wilkinson, to apprise Congress. On October 18 Washington was informed of Burgoyne’s surrender by a brief message from Governor George Clinton of New York. Charles Willson Peale was painting Washington’s portrait when the news came. “Ah,” Washington said tonelessly, reading the dispatch with an impassive face as he sat on the edge of a bed. “Burgoyne is defeated.”10 The unflappable Washington then continued with the session as if nothing had happened. It was a classic performance: he exercised the greatest self-control when roiled by the most unruly emotions. In public he tried hard to smile, but his private letters show he was saddened as well as gladdened by the news. “Let every face brighten and every heart expand with grateful joy and praise to the supreme disposer of all events,” he told his troops, and detonated thirteen cannon to celebrate the victory.11
All the while Washington quietly steamed that Gates hadn’t yet written to him. On October 24, when writing to John Hancock about a shortage of shoes and blankets, he confessed, “I am, and have been, waiting with the most anxious impatience for a confirmation of Gen[era]l Burgoyne’s surrender. I have received no further intelligence respecting it.”12 Characteristically, he saved the most explosive lines until the end, trying to pass them off as an afterthought. Also characteristically, he waited nearly a week to complain and didn’t mention Gates by name, as if he didn’t want to tip his hand. In reply, Hancock, then stepping down as president of Congress, told Washington, “I have not as yet heard a word from Gen[era]l Gates . .