George Washington and the Nasty People

“I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with … From the day I enter upon the command of the American armies, I date my fall and the ruin of my reputation.”

—George Washington

When the head of the Continental Army made those self-deprecating statements at the time of his selection last year, he was acknowledging that Congress’s choice had not been inevitable—and perhaps not even right. Among the others who had been considered: Artemas Ward, then 47, ailing commander of the Massachusetts troops, and Charles Lee, 44, who now serves Washington as first major general. But the Massachusetts delegates themselves realized that they could best win continent-wide support by letting a southerner take the lead. So it was John Adams who did most to see that the towering planter from tidewater Virginia was put in charge.

In a year of maneuvering, Washington has not yet confronted the kind of test that he now faces in New York. But Washington’s dealings with a dilatory and troublesome Congress, his choice of subordinates and his efforts to turn an impromptu band of ragged Yankee individualists into a modern 18th century army have shown him to be an impressive leader. His personality matches boldness to patience, an iron will to supple diplomacy, high vision to concern for lowly detail.

The new commander in chief reached the Army outside Boston on July 2, 1775. He found that it had fewer than 50 cannons, hardly any powder, few trained gunners or engineers, little pay and no order at all. The men had been recruited from the Connecticut. Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire militia to meet the alarm sent out after Lexington and Concord. By tradition, they elected their own leaders, and many refused to serve with men from other parts of New England.

The encounter between the Virginia gentleman and what he called “a mixed multitude of people” was dramatic. At first, disgruntled soldiers went home in shoals and there was a wave of courts-martial. A number of officers were broken. Thirty and 40 lashes for insubordination became a regular punishment. To Washington’s chagrin, one of the few southern units in his Army, a company of Virginia riflemen, rebelled against discipline and had to be surrounded and disarmed. “Such a dirty, mercenary spirit pervades the whole,” the exasperated general wrote in a rare display of open anger, “that I should not be at all surprised at any disaster that may happen.” As for the much vaunted New England troops, Washington confided to a friend, “I daresay the men would fight very well (if properly officered), although they are an exceedingly dirty and nasty people.”

Washington has since changed that view, partly because he has somewhat reformed his soldiery. The men have come to revere him. For one thing, he looks every inch a general. A big man, heavily muscled (6 feet 2 inches, 200 pounds), he has a strong, square face lightly marked by small pox. At 44, he is in perfect condition but for several missing teeth. He dresses in a fine uniform of dark blue faced with buff, set off by brass buttons. He is a great horseman —some say the best in Virginia.

Despite his formidable military appearance, Washington’s actual military experience was relatively slight and occurred long ago. As a novice of 22, he headed an unsuccessful militia effort, skirmishing with the French near the Ohio River, and he then spent three years patrolling the western frontiers against marauding Indians. In 1755, at the disastrous battle before Fort Duquesne, he served as an aide to the ill-fated General Edward Braddock. Washington had two horses shot from under him (and four bullet holes shot into his hat and coat) while trying to rally the men. He was cool in action, a comrade recalls, “like a bishop at his prayers.”

Even as a young man, Washington was noted for his stately manner (Virginia’s new Governor Patrick Henry once praised his “solid information and sound judgment”), but he sometimes showed a lighter side with ladies. A “chatty, agreeable companion,” one of them wrote to a friend, “he can be downright impudent sometimes, such impudence … as you and I like.” After a certain amount of impudence among notables like the Fairfaxes, his patrons, the young war veteran settled down with the widowed Martha Custis, then 27 (two children by her first marriage, none by her second). Said Washington: “With an agreeable consort for life … [I] hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide and bustling world.”

In almost 17 years of “retirement,” Washington built up his inherited estate, Mount Vernon, and bought large areas of western land (present total: close to 35,000 acres). He also bought additional slaves to carry out his experiments in growing wheat, barley, hemp and flax, in building fisheries and even in trying to breed buffaloes as beasts of burden. Enjoying his rewards, Washington ordered only the best of carriages from London “in the newest taste, with steel springs, green unless any other color is more in vogue.” His favorite sport: fox hunting. His favorite delicacies: oysters, watermelons, Madeira wine.

Even in retirement, a Virginia planter has obligations. Washington served in the House of Burgesses from 1759 on, as a justice in Alexandria from 1760-74 and as a delegate to both Continental Congresses. Now, under the burdens of command, he drives himself even harder than he drives his men, sometimes rising as early as 4:30 a.m.

The general’s orders of the day are famed for their sonority. One on personal behavior reads: “The general most earnestly requires and expects a due observance of those articles of war … which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkenness.” Wherever he moves, secretaries are kept busy handling the prodigious number of letters he turns out each day. Many of them are written to Congress to stir up pay and equipment for the Army (“100,000 dollars will be but a fleabite to our demands at this time”), especially munitions. It took him months to get the Congress to approve uniform standards of pay, terms of reenlistment, and such things as the number of men prescribed for platoons, companies and brigades. But he has done it.

If the new American Army is not a “rabble in arms,” as the British sneeringly claim, that is a measure of Washington’s success so far.