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insult against the commander in chief. Washington didn’t learn of the decision until two weeks later, when Conway materialized at Valley Forge to announce his appointment. Although we don’t know his exact words, Washington was always articulate when forced to break silence on a painful subject. To Conway’s consternation, he received him with what he later called “ceremonious civility,” an icy correctness that people found very unsettling. Not mincing words, he told Conway that his appointment would outrage more senior brigadiers in the army and that Conway couldn’t inspect anything until he had explicit instructions from Congress. Conway protested that he was “coolly received” at Valley Forge and complained to Washington of being greeted in such a manner “as I never met with before from any general during the course of thirty years in a very respectable army.”47 Washington dug in his heels in self-defense: “That I did not receive him in the language of a warm and cordial friend, I readily confess the charge,” he told Henry Laurens, who was now president of Congress. “I did not, nor shall I ever, till I am capable of the arts of dissimulation.”48

Conway had never really responded to Washington about the notorious note written to Gates. Amid his frigid reception at Valley Forge, he sent Washington an insolent letter that flaunted his true colors. “I understand that your aversion to me is owing to the letter I wrote to General Gates,” Conway began. He then said that subalterns in European armies freely gave their opinions of their generals, “but I never heard that the least notice was taken of these letters. Must such an odious and tyrannical inquisition begin in this country?” In conclusion, Conway said that “since you cannot bear the sight of me in your camp, I am very ready to go wherever Congress thinks proper and even to France.”49 The normally self-contained Washington was so infuriated by Conway’s conduct that John Laurens thought that in private life Washington might have contemplated a duel. “It is such an affront,” young Laurens told his father, “as Conway would never have dared to offer if the general’s situation had not assured him of the impossibility of its being revenged in a private way.”50 Laurens was mistaken in one thing: Washington considered dueling an outmoded form of chivalry. In the end the Board of War desisted from trying to impose Conway on Washington, and he was assigned to join General McDougall in New York.

The various efforts of Gates, Conway, Mifflin, et al. to discredit and even depose Washington have been known to history as the Conway Cabal. Cabal is much too strong a word for this loosely organized network of foes. In later years Washington confirmed that he thought an “attempt was made by a party in Congress to supplant me in that command,” and he sketched out its contours thus: “It appeared, in general, that General Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation and influence . . . General Mifflin, it is commonly supposed, bore the second part in the cabal, and General Conway, I know, was a very active and malignant partisan. But I have good reasons to believe that their machinations have recoiled most sensibly upon themselves.”51 The episode showed that, whatever Washington’s demerits as a military man, he was a consummate political infighter. With command of his tongue and temper, he had the supreme temperament for leadership compared to his scheming rivals. It was perhaps less his military skills than his character that eclipsed all competitors. Washington was dignified, circumspect, and upright, whereas his enemies seemed petty and skulking. However thin-skinned he was, he never doubted the need for legitimate criticism and contested only the devious methods of opponents. Calling criticism of error “the prerogative of freemen,” he still deplored such a “secret, insidious attempt . . . to wound my reputation!”52 For the rest of the war, he didn’t allow these things to cloud his judgment, never told tales indiscreetly, and confined his opinions of intramural feuding to a small