At the Lispenard mansion, Washington received an urgent dispatch from Boston. Although the sealed communiqúe was addressed to John Hancock, Washington thought it prudent to open it in case it contained timely news. His instinct was correct: the dispatch reported that on June 17 more than two thousand British troops, led by General William Howe, had stormed fortified patriot positions on Breed’s Hill, forcing an American retreat. (The battle was incorrectly labeled Bunker Hill.) Intent upon inflicting maximum terror on supposedly amateurish Americans, the British had incinerated the buildings of Charlestown, leaving the obliterated town a smoking ruin. Bunker Hill proved a Pyrrhic victory, for the British registered more than a thousand casualties. Americans had shown not only pluck and grit but excellent marksmanship as they picked off British officers; firing at officers was then considered a shocking breach of military etiquette. The Americans suffered 450 casualties, including the death of Major General Joseph Warren. Even while it dented British confidence, the Battle of Bunker Hill stirred patriotic spirits, exposing the first chinks in the British fighting machine and suggesting, wrongly, that green American militia troops could outfight British professionals. As the British reeled, a stunned General Howe admitted, “The success is too dearly bought.”49 Washington recognized that the British had been chastened—“a few more such victories woul[d] put an end to their army,” he wryly told his brother Sam—but he insisted that the battle was a missed opportunity.50 If the men had “been properly conducted,” he concluded, “the regulars would have met with a shameful defeat.”51 At the same time, he would spend the first year or two of the war referring back to Bunker Hill and hoping to recapitulate the terrific beating inflicted on the startled British.
Though Washington yearned to be off to Boston, members of the New York Provincial Congress wanted to address him, and political decorum dictated that he linger. It was the start of the interminable ceremonies that would be the bane of his public life. Already tired from formalities and sacrificing precious time, he instructed his assistants to be ready to leave the instant the meeting ended. Washington sounded a conciliatory theme to the provincial congress, promising to apply his efforts to the restoration “of peace and harmony between the mother [country and the] colonies.”52 He minted a beautiful phrase that must have resonated deeply among his listeners: “When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.”53 The citizen-soldier passed this first test of his political skills with flying colors. Gifted with perfect pitch, he knew how to talk the language of peace even as he girded for war.
As Washington and his party pushed northward, his mind was occupied with the situation awaiting him in Boston. A decade later he admitted that he wasn’t sufficiently “at ease” to observe closely the countryside through which he passed.54 He felt beleaguered by the social duties thrust upon him as he passed through an unending succession of towns and endured ritual greetings from their leading citizens. He was already swamped with letters from provincial legislators, who began to address him as “His Excellency”—a rather regal locution for a revolutionary leader. George Washington was already becoming more than a mere man: he was the face and form of an amorphous cause. As Garry Wills has noted, “Before there was a nation—before there was any symbol of that nation (a flag, a Constitution, a national seal)—there was Washington.”55 Knowing that people wished to see him astride a horse, Washington would step down from his carriage and mount a horse before entering a town, turning it into a theatrical performance.56
On Sunday, July 2, Washington arrived at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to assume control of the Continental Army, which had laid siege to Boston and the many redcoats bottled up inside the town. People in New England took the Sabbath seriously, and Washington respected religious observance, so on this historic day the stately Virginian made a quiet, unobtrusive entrance into the camp. The fledgling troops that had lined up on the parade ground to be inspected were dismissed when a steady daylong rain spoiled the reception, but Washington and Lee did meet with the officers’ corps that evening. The rain screened any clear view of the British troops in the distance. Nevertheless, in taking up his duties, George Washington had crossed the threshold into a new life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Magnificent Bluff
ALTHOUGH GEORGE WASHINGTON had never attended college and regretted his lack of education, he moved into the Harvard Square home of college president Samuel Langdon, who retreated to a single room. Politicians and officers soon descended on Washington en masse, including the two New England generals Artemas Ward and Israel Putnam. By mid-July Washington had transferred to grander quarters on Brattle Street, occupying the three-story Georgian mansion of John Vassall, a rich Tory who had fled behind British lines in besieged Boston. The Vassalls had owned a slave family that remained in the house, and when Washington toured his new headquarters, he found a slave boy, Darby Vassall, swinging on the front gate. In a friendly manner, Washington expressed interest in taking him into his service, but Darby, imbued with the spirit of liberty, asked what his pay would be. At that interjection, Washington evidently lost interest. “General Washington was no gentleman,” Darby later said, “to expect a boy to work without wages.”1
By the time Washington and Charles Lee reviewed troops on the parade ground on July 3, the overcast skies had cleared and an effervescent mood filled the air. Twenty-one drummers and as many fife players treated the new generals to a full musical accompaniment as they inspected the New England soldiers. While some had muskets, many others toted primitive weapons, including tomahawks and knives lashed to poles. Despite these handicaps, Washington hoped the patriots could muster eighteen thousand men—at least, if one included the sick and absent—and enjoy a numerical superiority over British forces of no more than twelve thousand.
As Washington and Lee toured lengthy defensive fortifications being thrown up pell-mell to deter a British attack, they viewed the eerie reality of two armies, separated by scarcely more than a mile, enjoying panoramic, unobstructed views of each other. It was easy to make out British sentinels pacing on Bunker Hill. With some amazement, Washington told Richard Henry Lee that the British and Americans were “almost near enough to converse.”2 To Washington, it seemed that both sides had settled into an uneasy standoff.
On July 4 the Congress formally incorporated the state militias into the Continental Army, enabling Washington to issue general orders that would sound the signature themes of his tenure. This George Washington differed from the callow, sometimes grasping young colonel who had governed the Virginia Regiment and was narrowly absorbed in his career. From the outset, his official voice pulsated with high ideals. He tried to dissolve state differences into a new national identity, telling his men that the troops being raised from various colonies were “now the troops of the United Provinces of North America and it is hoped that all distinctions of colonies will be laid aside.”3
Always buffed and polished, with an elegant sword strapped to his side and silver spurs on his boots, Washington roamed all over the camp. “His Excellency was on horseback, in company with several other military gentlemen,” Dr. James Thacher wrote. “It was not difficult to distinguish him from the others; his personal appearance is truly noble and majestic.”4 A local diarist, Ezekiel Price, picked up reports on July 5 that “General Washington had visited the camps, and the soldiers were much pleased with him.”5 As at Mount Vernon, Washington rose at sunup to ride about the camp, lifting sagging spirits with his presence. Suddenly rejuvenated troops were happily digging trenches at four in the morning. “There is great overturning in the camp as to order and regularity,” said an impressed chaplain. “New lords, new laws.”6 A beefy former bookseller from Boston named Henry Knox stood in awe of Washington’s panache: “General Washington fills his place with vast ease and dignity and dispenses happiness around him.”7 An enthusiastic friend reported to John Adams that Washington “has in a manner inspired officers and soldiers with a taste for discipline and they go into it readily, as they all venerate and love the general.”8 His Excellency also left the ladies agog. “You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of George Washington,” Abigail Adams chided her husband, “but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably blended in him.”9