Washington [298]
Afraid that his army might relax its guard prematurely, he kept drilling troops on the parade ground, demanded that his men look sharp, and barked out a steady stream of instructions: “The commander in chief recommends to the officers to pay particular attention to the carriage of their men either upon parade or marching . . . Nothing contributes so much to the appearance of a soldier, or so plainly indicates discipline, as an erect carriage, firm step, and steady countenance.”22 He indicated his displeasure that soldiers didn’t “step boldly and freely, but short and with bent knees.”23 Not only did he want his men to look bright and snappy, but he wanted them housed in style, insisting that “regularity, convenience, and even some degree of elegance should be attended to in the construction of their huts.”24
To maintain the fighting spirit of his army, Washington introduced a decoration that came to be known as the “Purple Heart.” In cases of “unusual gallantry” or “extraordinary fidelity and essential service,” soldiers would receive a purple heart-shaped cloth, to be worn over the left breast.25 Since it was to be conferred on noncommissioned officers and ordinary soldiers, the decoration supplied further proof of Washington’s growing egalitarian spirit during the war. (After a lapse in its use, the Purple Heart was revived by presidential order in 1932, and anyone in the U.S. Army became eligible for it.) At the time when Washington inaugurated the honor, fighting had largely ceased, and only isolated deaths remained in the war. One of the last victims was his sparkling young aide John Laurens, who had hoped to raise black troops in the South. “Poor Laurens is no more,” Washington wrote glumly to Lafayette that October. “He fell in a trifling skirmish in South Carolina, attempting to prevent the enemy from plundering the country of rice.”26
Washington didn’t know that on November 30, 1782, a preliminary peace treaty had been signed in Paris and that the American side had won everything it could have wished, including recognition of independence and broad borders stretching north to the Great Lakes and west to the Mississippi. Washington got a glimmer of the truth in mid-December when the British general Alexander Leslie and his troops sailed from Charleston, South Carolina; a few hours later Nathanael Greene entered the city, bringing the southern war to a close. Washington congratulated Greene “on the glorious end you have put to hostilities in the southern states.”27 Whenever Washington lauded Greene, his praise never contained even a twinge of envy, only unmistakable pride. In marking the conclusion of southern combat, he paid lavish tribute to Greene, stating that “this happy change has been wrought, almost solely, by the personal abilities of Major Gen[era]l Greene.”28 This rosey outcome justified the faith Washington had shown early in the war, when Greene had blundered at Fort Washington and another commander might have lost all confidence in him.
What should have been a joyous moment for Washington turned into a troubled one. The national treasury had again run empty, the states having failed to make their requisite payments. As another icy winter loomed, Washington sensed deep discontent roiling his troops. Suddenly reluctant to leave them alone in Newburgh, he relinquished his cherished hope of returning to Mount Vernon. At first he even declined to ask Martha to make her annual pilgrimage to the camp, although he relented and she arrived in December. “The temper of the army is much soured,” he told one congressman in mid-November, “and has become more irritable than at any period since the commencement of the war.”29 Girding himself for disturbances, he vowed to stick close to his