The Nation: The Army’s Four Horsemen

Throughout his first year of command. General Washington has been evaluating his chief officers. As of last week, the four most notable were:

Major Gen. Charles Lee, 45

Washington’s chief deputy is a former British lieutenant colonel of infantry who took up soldiering at the age of 15, learned six languages, once served as major general to the King of Poland, is an adopted son of a Mohawk tribe, and has lately been celebrated as a pamphleteer against the British Crown. A gaunt unkempt figure racked with gout, Lee is highly critical of other men’s soldierly skills. “Booby-in-chief’ was his sobriquet for one hapless general under whom he served during the French and Indian War.

To get the benefit of Lee’s detailed grasp of military drill, maneuvers and planning, the conservative Washington willingly puts up with Lee’s eccentricities—among them profanity, a sarcastic style in writing reports, and a pack of dogs (poodles and a Pomeranian) that customarily infests his headquarters.

Major Gen. Israel Putnam, 58

Like Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus on a similar occasion, General Putnam is celebrated in New England for leaving his plow in mid-furrow to go to fight the British. Even before that, the general was a local legend as “Old Put,” homespun hero of the French and Indian War, who escaped scalping only by a mixture of courage and guile.

A hurricane of energy, built like a barrel of spruce beer, Putnam quickly won the rank of general during the disorganized fighting before Washington took command. His aggressive spirit spurred American forces to the occupation of Charlestown and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Washington values Putnam as a leader of small forces in hot combat, but the semiliterate general knows and cares little about problems like planning and supply. Putnam is presently second in command in New York. To help him with administration Washington has assigned him an aide from his own staff, Major Aaron Burr, 20, a sparrow-sized scholar from Princeton, New Jersey, who fought with distinction in the battle for Quebec.

Brigadier Gen. Nathanael Greene, 34

Until last year the youngest brigadier in the Continental Army was a forger of ship anchors in Coventry, Rhode Island. He has little formal education but used to study Euclid and military history beside his forge at night. Though raised a Quaker, Greene helped form a militia troop to resist British tyranny. When other members of his troop thought he should be disqualified from command because of a game leg, Greene characteristically offered to serve as a private. But his talent as a leader, especially in acquiring and organizing supplies, was quickly noticed. He progressed from private to general within a few months.

A burly man, Greene nonetheless has a gentle manner and a knack for soothing ruffled feelings. When Washington arrived in New York in April, he named the young general commander of all forces on Long Island. Some say the commander in chief has already decided that if he should be killed, Greene would be the general best qualified to succeed him.

Brigadier Gen. Benedict Arnold, 35

Arnold was a druggist and a merchant sea captain from New Haven when the fighting broke out. He rode to Cambridge and began raising a troop to attack the British, not in Boston but at Fort Ticonderoga, overlooking Lake Champlain, which he knew to be weakly held and full of cannon desperately needed by the Colonies. He and Irregular Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys, easily surprised and captured Ticonderoga. Arnold then commandeered a schooner, sailed northward, and with 35 men took St. John’s, just over the Canadian border. Arnold was a chief advocate of the Canadian invasion, in which he displayed remarkable courage and daring.

Arnold ran away from home at 14 to fight in the French and Indian War but otherwise is militarily untrained. He is reputed, however, to have a surer natural sense of tactics ashore and afloat than any other American commander, including George Washington.