Washington [221]
At moments Washington viewed the controversy with philosophic resignation and wondered whether he should return to Mount Vernon. After receiving a confidential warning from the Reverend William Gordon that a faction was plotting to install Charles Lee in his stead, Washington replied ruefully: “So soon then as the public gets dissatisfied with my services, or a person is found better qualified to answer her expectation, I shall quit the helm with as much satisfaction and retire to a private station with as much content as ever the wearied pilgrim felt upon his safe arrival in the Holy Land.”53 He didn’t need to worry. The so-called Conway Cabal taught people that Washington was tough and crafty in defending his terrain and that they tangled with him at their peril. Henceforth anyone who underestimated George Washington lived to regret the error. His skillful treatment of the “cabal” silenced his harshest critics, leaving him in unquestioned command of the Continental Army. The end of this war among Washington’s generals augured well for the larger war against the British.
It should be said that the need to solidify Washington’s position and humble his enemies had a political logic. With the possible exception of the Continental Congress, the Continental Army was the purest expression of the new, still inchoate country, a working laboratory for melding together citizen-soldiers from various states and creating a composite American identity. Washington personified that army and was therefore the main unifying figure in the war. John Adams regarded this as the main reason why people tolerated his defeats and overlooked his errors. To Dr. Benjamin Rush, he later pontificated: “There was a time when northern, middle, and southern statesmen . . . expressly agreed to blow the trumpet of panegyric in concert to cover and dissemble all faults and errors; to represent every defeat as a victory and every retreat as an advancement to make that character [Washington] popular and fashionable with all parties in all places and with all persons, as a center of union, as the central stone in the geometrical arch. There you have the revelation of the whole mystery.”54
In the last analysis, Washington’s triumph over the troublesome Gates, Mifflin, and Conway was total. For unity’s sake, he was unfailingly polite to Gates: “I made a point of treating Gen[era]l Gates with all the attention and cordiality in my power, as well from a sincere desire of harmony as from an unwillingness to give any cause of triumph to our enemies.”55 Gates’s defects as a general would become glaring in time. Thomas Mifflin resigned as quartermaster general amid charges of mismanagement. The most complete triumph came over Thomas Conway, who plied Congress with so many abusive letters and threatened to resign so often that delegates were finally pleased to accept his resignation in April 1778. Conway refused to muzzle his criticism of Washington, however, which led him in July into a duel with John Cadwalader, a stalwart Washington defender. Cadwalader shot Conway in the mouth and neck and is supposed to have boasted as he stared down at his bleeding foe, “I have stopped the damned rascal’s lying anyway.”56 With incredible resilience, Conway recuperated from these wounds and sent Washington a chastened note before he returned to France. “I find myself just able to hold the pen during a few minutes,” the convalescent soldier wrote, “and take this opportunity of expressing my sincere grief for having done, written, or said anything disagreeable to Your Excellency. My career will soon be over. Therefore justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You are, in my eyes, the great and the good man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and esteem of these states whose liberties you have asserted by your virtues.”57
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Dreary Kind of Place
IN DECEMBER 1777 General William Howe eased into comfortable winter quarters in Philadelphia. For British officers