Washington [540]
It may have been the stress of this situation that sent Washington into a medical tailspin. On August 18 he came down with an ague—chills and sweats—and succumbed a couple of days later to a fever so intense that he shed twenty pounds in short order. He was so weakened by illness that even writing letters proved a wearisome task. In late August McHenry warned Washington that Adams was hardening his stand about the ranking of the three generals.
Aside from Adams’s opposition to Hamilton, the touchiest matter for Washington was the likely wounded feelings of Henry Knox (a major general), who had far outranked both Hamilton (a colonel) and Pinckney (a brigadier general) during the war. Since Washington felt national security was at stake, he was not about to allow past friendships to overrule his military judgment. However close they had been during the war, Knox had gravely disappointed Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion. With all the diplomacy at his command, Washington wrote to Knox and explained that Pinckney had to precede him because the latter was a southerner and any war with France would likely unfold in the South. Washington also thought the French might try to foment a slave uprising to conquer the region. What he didn’t state openly was that he thought the Jeffersonians might form a fifth column in the South, aiding France and sowing dissension. Given the grave threat, he told Knox, “I would fain hope, as we are forming an army anew, which army . . . is to fight for everything that ought to be dear and sacred to free men, that former rank will be forgot.”66 Washington may have had sound military reasons for downgrading Knox, but if he thought Knox would accept this with good grace, he was a poor psychologist. When Knox received Washington’s letter, he was in the throes of yet another financial crisis. His life had also been blighted by family tragedy; the ninth of his twelve children had recently died—one room of his house was dubbed “the dead room” because so many dead children had been laid out there—and he must have been in a highly vulnerable state.67
Knox’s anguished reply made it manifestly clear how devastated he was by Washington’s letter. He had broken open the letter with delight, he said, only to absorb its contents with astonishment. He stated that “for more than twenty years, I must have been acting under a perfect delusion. Conscious myself of entertaining for you a sincere, active, and invariable friendship, I easily believed it was reciprocal. Nay more, I flattered myself with your esteem and respect in a military point of view. But I find that others greatly my juniors in rank have been . . . preferred before me.”68 By not consulting him first, he implied, Washington had exposed him to public humiliation.
In self-defense, Washington professed surprise that Knox had reacted so strongly in the matter and denied any intent “to see you in a degraded point of view.”69 He contended that the Federalists had chosen Hamilton as his second in command and presented the selection as a fait accompli—an atypical case of Washington shading the truth. In an emotional mistake, he pleaded that Hamilton had a large family to support and needed special inducements to accept the military post—which could only have bruised Knox after losing so many children. It was a sad denouement to the warm, fruitful relationship between Washington and Knox. Nevertheless, behind the scenes, Washington scrambled to see if he could give Knox seniority over Pinckney, “if it would satisfy Knox.”70 All the while Knox remained adamant that the rules should “decide in favor of [the] former rank” that prevailed at the end of the Revolution.71
Amid this impasse, John Marshall and Bushrod Washington appeared at Mount Vernon for a three-day visit. Washington entreated both men to run for Congress from their Virginia districts, stressing the need to oust Republican incumbents during a national emergency and lamenting the “violent and