Washington [218]
Washington was incensed to learn about Conway’s impending promotion, especially since he would be jumped over twenty more senior brigadiers. He had been dismayed by Conway’s behavior at Germantown, accusing him of deserting his men, and now he departed from his usual practice of staying aloof from congressional deliberations. He wrote to Richard Henry Lee that Conway’s promotion would “be as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted.”30 Washington seldom spoke so brusquely, but there was more. “General Conway’s merit then as an officer, and his importance in this army, exists more in his own imagination than in reality. For it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his untold.”31 Most shocking of all, Washington seemed ready to tender his own resignation. “To sum up the whole, I have been a slave to the service . . . but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way.”32 Washington was showing how adroit he could be at infighting, how skillful in suppressing lurking challenges to his supremacy. In many ways, he was more sure-footed in contesting political than military threats. He knew that power held in reserve—power deployed firmly but reluctantly—was always the most effective form. On October 20 Richard Henry Lee assured Washington that Conway would never be bumped up to major general, but Lee, a secret critic of Washington himself, disclosed something else disturbing: Congress intended to overhaul the Board of War, switching it from a legislative committee to an executive agency, staffed by general officers who would supervise the military. This news came as a revelation to Washington, who could only regard it as a powerful rebuke.
Amid an atmosphere of rampant suspicion, Washington received fresh proof that enemies in high places conspired against him. As mentioned, Gates had assigned his young aide James Wilkinson to carry the news of Saratoga to Congress. Later described by Washington as “lively, sensible, pompous, and ambitious,” Wilkinson had a bombastic addiction to storytelling.33 En route to Congress, this indiscreet young man paused in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he met with an aide to Lord Stirling and regaled him with stories of Gates’s savage comments about Washington’s actions at Brandywine Creek. He also showed him an inflammatory line that General Conway had written to General Gates, indicting Washington’s leadership. “Heaven has been determined to save your country,” Conway wrote, “or a weak general and bad councillors would have ruined it.”34 Lord Stirling, loyal to Washington, passed along this offensive comment to him, remarking that “such wicked duplicity of conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect.”35 Washington was stunned to see the remark, which suggested blatant collusion between the two generals to blacken his name.
In meeting the threat, Washington reverted to his favorite technique, earlier used with Joseph Reed: sending an incriminating document to its author without comment. He would betray as little as possible of what he knew so as to let the guilty party incriminate himself. In sending Conway the line, Washington later said, he intended to convey “that I was not unapprised of his intriguing disposition.”36 Conway countered with a cagey note, telling Washington that he was “willing that my original letter to General Gates should be handed to you. This, I trust, will convince you of my way of thinking.”37 Of course, he didn’t specify what his way of thinking was. On November 16, while avoiding any mention of their feud, Conway sent Washington a curt announcement: “The hopes and appearance of a French war, along with some other reasons, have induc[e]d me to send my resignation to Congress.”38 Since