CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Heights

THE REPUBLICAN IDEOLOGY that Washington absorbed from his avid reading of Revolutionary pamphlets never fit easily with his patrician reflexes as a Virginia planter. Perhaps few actions he took during the war exhibited his inconsistent nature in such bold relief as his creation of a personal guard during the dispiriting Cambridge winter. In part, the decision arose from legitimate concerns for his safety. “To guard against assassination, which I neither expect nor dread, is impossible,” Washington later wrote, but he knew that kidnapping attempts were always a possibility, especially since he himself would hatch a couple of failed schemes to kidnap British generals.¹

His order to forge a personal guard or Life Guard, as it was commonly called, also sprang from a desire to be surrounded by a crack team of disciplined professionals who would accompany him whenever he rode out to review the troops. Protective of his historical reputation, Washington committed the care of his personal papers to this guard. Having such an elite corps at the beck and call of the chief general was a throwback to the glittering world of European armies.

In general orders for March 11, 1776, Washington instructed the commanding officer of each regiment to pluck out four men apiece for his guard. His description of what he wanted shows how much stock he placed in appearance. The men should be “from five feet eight inches high to five feet ten inches; handsomely and well made; and as there is nothing in his [i.e., Washington’s] eyes more desirable than cleanliness in a soldier, he desires that particular attention may be made in the choice of such men as are neat and spruce.”² This precision was strange indeed at a time when Washington feared his army might crumble into dust.

A year later Washington issued new instructions that tightened requirements for the unit. Now he wanted his bandbox men to “look well and be nearly of a size.” He narrowed the height range—“I desire that none of the men may exceed in stature 5 feet 10 inches, nor fall short of 5 feet 9 inches”—and said they should be “sober, young, active, and well made.”³ Although Washington allowed class preferences to trump ideology, he didn’t want it to get around and enforced secrecy on the officers: “I am satisfied there can be no absolute security for the fidelity of this class of people, but yet I think it most likely to be found in those who have family connections in the country. You will therefore send me none but natives and men of some property, if you have them. I must insist that in making this choice you give no intimation of my preference of natives as I do not want to create any invidious distinction between them and the foreigners.”⁴ It should be said that Washington had noticed that a disproportionate number of foreign-born troops defected to the British side to pocket lucrative bounties.

Washington decked out his handpicked men in blue and buff uniforms, their round hats sprouting blue and white feathers and ornamented with bearskin strips. Nervous about the expense, he again demanded secrecy, noting that these costs created an “expense which I would not wish should go forth.”⁵ His painstaking regard for appearances wasn’t limited to his Life Guard. That January he told his troops that “nothing adds more to the appearance of a man than dress” and that he hoped “each regiment will contend for the most soldierlike appearance.”⁶ Even in the waning days of the war, he was preoccupied by an absence of hats, for the lack “of which the beauty and uniformity of the other articles will be in a great measure lost . . . and the troops can never make a military appearance.”⁷ He ordered officers to lend hats an attractive image “by cutting, cocking, or adding such other decorations as they think proper.”⁸ Washington’s perfectionism about looks extended down to his horses. His most famous steed, Old Nelson, a chestnut horse with a white face, earned the distinction of being the first “nicked” horse in America—that is, the root of his tail was incised so that he carried it with a high flourish. Washington was well aware of the towering impression he made on horseback.

ON JANUARY 14, 1776, Washington informed John Hancock that the state of American arms was “truly alarming.”⁹ His prayers for more firepower were soon answered. Three days later, beaming with good news, Henry Knox lumbered into camp after a two-month absence. He reported the imminent arrival of heavy weapons carted three hundred miles from Fort Ticonderoga. Incredibly, Knox had taken almost sixty mortars and cannon, weighing about 120,000 pounds, and mounted them on forty-two giant sleds. Through thickening December snow, teams of oxen had hauled this ponderous artillery up and down mountain passes, across frozen rivers, and down village lanes as spectators gaped in wonder. The entire grand procession seemed quasi-miraculous, and Henry Knox became the hero of the hour, executing one of the war’s legendary feats. In an instant, the entire conflict was transformed, for Washington could now contemplate offensive action against British troops bottled up in Boston.

The arrival of the big Ticonderoga guns was providential. Washington remained dangerously short of gunpowder and firearms, and two thousand men lacked muskets or ammunition. Things had come to such a desperate pass that Benjamin Franklin suggested to General Charles Lee that the troops be furnished with bows and arrows. “Those were good weapons,” Franklin admonished him, “not wisely laid aside.”¹⁰ So perilous was the plight of his troops that Washington confessed to Joseph Reed, “I have been oblig[e]d to use art to conceal it from my own officers.”¹¹ He had succeeded so brilliantly in pretending to be securely armed that his main supporters overestimated his strength and expected more zeal in dislodging the British. As Washington observed, “The means used to conceal my weakness from the enemy conceals it also from our friends and adds to their wonder.”¹²

One missing prerequisite for an offensive operation was a blast of cold air to freeze the waterway between the Continental Army and the British troops, allowing an invasion of Boston without employing boats. When the temperature plummeted to near zero in late January, forming an icy crust on the water, Washington monitored it carefully. On February 13, at Lechmere Point, he determined that the ice had sufficiently thickened to freeze the channel all the way to Boston. Hence on February 16 he convened a war council to present a plan for “a bold and resolute assault upon the troops in Boston.”¹³ His skeptical generals unanimously voted it down, finding the plan flawed because they were short of gunpowder and couldn’t soften up the British beforehand with heavy bombardments. They also believed that Washington had overstated the size of American forces and underrated British strength.

With reluctance, Washington accepted their verdict and said tartly to Joseph Reed that they had waited all year for the bay to freeze, but now that it had, “the enterprise was thought too dangerous!” At the same time, he admitted that his “irksome” situation had perhaps led him to advocate a rash action that might have miscarried.¹⁴ There was nothing despotic in Washington’s nature, making him the ideal leader of a republican revolution, but he still had to learn when to trust his instincts and overrule his generals. It was both Washington’s glory and his curse that he was so sensitive to public opinion, so jealous of his image, and so willing to listen to others.

The veto of his generals steered the discussion to a second plan that turned into one of the war’s inspired maneuvers. The high ground of Dorchester Heights, which loomed over Boston from the south, could be used to defeat the British if it was fortified. This strategic bluff, more than one hundred feet high, had remained unarmed for several reasons. Spies in Boston reported General Howe’s solemn vow to “sally forth” and snuff out the rebellion if the Americans attempted to occupy it.¹⁵ And thorny logistical questions remained. How could fortifications be built on ice-encrusted ground? How could the Americans move the Ticonderoga guns up to the lofty ridge within full view and range of enemy guns?