Washington [280]
In general, Washington lived up to his vaunted reputation for honesty, but it was awkward for him to admit that he had, at least initially, opposed a campaign that served as the brilliant capstone of his military career. He wanted to portray himself as the visionary architect of the Yorktown victory, not as a general misguidedly concentrating upon New York while his French allies masterminded the decisive blow. Washington made it difficult for people to catch his lie because he alleged that he had tried to deceive his own side as well as the enemy; hence any communication could be construed as part of the master bluff. When Washington’s letter to Noah Webster was published in the American Museum in 1791, Timothy Pickering, the former adjutant general and quartermaster general of the Continental Army, shook his head sadly. “It will hurt [Washington’s] moral character,” he wrote to Dr. Benjamin Rush. “He has been generally thought to be honest and I own I thought his morals were good, but that letter is false and I know it to be so.”34
Whatever his shortcomings as a military strategist, the French understood that Washington’s greatness as a general lay in his prolonged sustenance of his makeshift army. He had done something unprecedented by cobbling together a creditable fighting force from the poor, the young, the black, and the downtrodden, and he had done it in the face of unprecedented political obstacles. In early July the French and American armies camped close together near Dobbs Ferry, on the east bank of the Hudson, giving the French officers a chance to study the Continental Army and marvel at what Washington had wrought. It was a heterogeneous, mongrel army such as no European had ever before witnessed. “I admire the American troops tremendously!” said Baron von Closen. “It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even of children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly.” He gave all credit to “the calm and calculated measures of General Washington, in whom I daily discover some new and eminent qualities.”35
Von Closen’s amazement was shared by his colleague the Count de Clermont-Crèvecoeur. As the latter roamed about the American army camp, he was stunned “by its destitution: the men were without uniforms and covered with rags; most of them were barefoot. They were of all sizes down to children who could not have been over fourteen. There were many negroes, mulattoes, etc. Only their artillerymen were wearing uniforms.”36 Such tributes are the more noteworthy in that Washington was ashamed of the slovenly state of his army, which only heightened the admiration of the flabbergasted French.
Predictably, French officers carped at the quality of American food. On the other hand, they couldn’t fault the quantity, except the way it all seemed thrown indiscriminately on one plate: “The table was served in the American style and pretty abundantly: vegetables, roast beef, lamb, chickens, salad dressed with nothing but vinegar, green peas, puddings and some pie, a kind of tart . . . all this being put upon the table at the same time. They gave us on the same plate beef, green peas, lamb & etc.”37 One wonders how Washington squared this groaning table with his constant pleas to Congress about food shortages. The French stared in amazement at all the beer and rum consumed and the interminable toasts with raised glasses of wine. They found Washington in an expansive mood at these dinners, convivial and relaxed—the Count de Ségur spoke of his “unaffected cheerfulness”—and he lingered long into the night after the evening meals.38
On July 18 Washington and Rochambeau wandered along the Hudson at the north end of Manhattan, surveying enemy positions. So many years