Adopted Son Page 19
Lafayette learned about the project from Conway’s aide on January 20. He said that Conway had been summoned to York by Gates and Mifflin to command the invasion. “They will laugh in France,” Lafayette told Washington, “when they’l hear that he is choosen upon such a commission out of the same army where I am,” because the man was Irish, and Canadians would expect a Frenchman to liberate their country. He reassured his adoptive father that “I mention that only as a remark of theyr folly, Sir. I do not entertain myself any idea of leaving your army.”10
The marquis heard from Henry Laurens on the twenty-second that he, not Conway, would command the “irruption,” and Washington advised him to hurry to York. Congress authorized the expedition with the marquis in command, Conway second in command, and New Hampshire general John Stark in third place. Lafayette visited Gates and imposed conditions before he would accept the job. First was that Conway not be part of it. Second was that an American ought to be his deputy. Third was that he be allowed to pick his own officers. Finally, and most important, he would serve only under Washington, not as an independent commander. Orders must come to him from the Board of War through the commander in chief.11
Gates and the board said they agreed. They told him he would find 2,500 men waiting for him at Albany, a “large body” of militia at Coos, $200,000 in paper money, some silver money, and “the means for crossing the ice of Lake Champlain.” After he burned the British flotilla, he should “fall upon Montreal and act there as the situation required.” Gates told him, “The Board flatter themselves that the officers appointed by Congress to cooperate with you in this matter will be acceptable.”12
Gates and the board assumed that the young general would accept a march to glory on any terms, even if Conway was along for the ride. Back at Valley Forge, on January 24 Lafayette thanked Laurens, asking that Congress permit him to regard himself only as detached from Washington’s army, remaining under his immediate command, rather than as an agent of the Board of War. As for his second, he said, “Mr. Connway is the most disagreeable to me…. How can I support the society of a man who has spocken of my friend in the most insolent and abusive terms, who has done, and does every day all his power to ruin him?
“On the other hand,” he continued, “I am very certain that every one who can find one single reason of refusing düe respect and love to Gal Washington will find thousand ones of hating me to death.” He sputtered with rage, and his English showed it. He charged that Conway would “sacrify honor, truth, and every thing respectable to his own ambition and desire of making a fortune. What engages me to despise him more is that he is with me as submist, as complaisant, and low than he is insolent with those he do’nt fear.”13
Members of Congress were in camp meeting with Washington. Lafayette showed his letter to one of them, Gouverneur Morris, before he sent it. Morris told Laurens that he supported Lafayette’s request for an American second in command, preferably the tough old fighter General Alexander McDougall. The marquis also shared his letter with John Laurens, who took it to Washington. John disapproved of the Canada project, but he stood behind Lafayette’s position. Washington tacitly concurred.14
The expedition was not off to a happy start. “We have now in motion an irruption into Canada,” Henry Laurens said, “under the command of Marquis de Lafayette, provided he will condescend to accept of Mr. Conway for his second. If I may judge from his letters to me in which he speaks of this officer with the utmost abhorrence, he will not.”15
Washington’s supporters were suspicious about the motives behind the enterprise, about which the commander in chief had not been formally notified. Lafayette also suspected that he was being set up for a fall. The expedition would be allowed to fail, he would go back to France in disgrace, and Conway would replace him. In truth, the Board of War appeared malevolent when it was just clumsy. It wanted Conway on the campaign to get him away from York.16
Washington’s notification and Lafayette’s instructions arrived with Conway on January 27. The Irish-Frenchman sent an ingratiating note to the marquis, and the younger general boiled over again. Conway, he sneered to Laurens, said “he feels a much greater pleasure to be under me than if he was commander in chief, too happy, says-he, if he can by every exertion in his power contribute in some thing to my reputation.” He also objected to Congressman William Duer as the board’s representative to the expedition because he believed that Duer was a Trojan horse plotting against Washington.17
Lafayette wanted to lead the invasion, but he did not want to be a patsy. Just as important, he wanted no one to undercut Washington’s powers of command. The commander in chief decided to watch the crazy affair work itself out and refused to give his professional opinion. Because he knew nothing about either the aim or the logistical arrangements for the expedition, he advised Gates, he declined to pass judgment on the subject. “I can only sincerely wish,” he said, “that success may attend it, both as it may be advancive of the public good and on account of the personal honor of the Marquis de la Fayette, for whom I have a very particular esteem and regard.” This was a veiled warning. The boy had defended him, and he would defend the boy.18
Lafayette played on congressional interest in Canada to spike Conway’s guns, because he believed the Conway Cabal was still at work. Washington let the marquis have his head in this affair, so that he could learn to rise above any future challenge. The young general could be exasperating, however, even to the indulgent Henry Laurens, who told him to cool off. The president knew how to tell good motives from bad, and “as I judge charitably I would endeavour to act circumspectly even with such characters, who divested of the spirit of party may be valuable men in community.” In other words, Duer would stay with “Your Excellency.”19
Lafayette spent January 30 with Laurens, and they came to terms. Then he visited Gates and the board to clarify his instructions. Lafayette wore down the opposition and got his way. Unless Conway was replaced by McDougall (or de Kalb if McDougall was too sick, which he was), and unless Congress commissioned a list of French officers he presented, he would lead all the French officers home. There they would explain why he, they, and Washington were disappointed at the situation in America. The board and Congress caved in, but the objective of the campaign now was to seize or destroy enemy boats and supplies. It was a raid, in other words, and no longer a conquest. That was a letdown, but he took it in stride. Besides, Conway had been dropped to third in command. The important thing was that Lafayette would ride at the head of the only troops scheduled to move this winter.20
While the marquis prepared to leave York in early February 1778, President Laurens received a visit from a downtrodden Henry Gates, who wanted the president to help him heal his differences with Washington. Conway had become an albatross, and Gates disavowed him. Laurens passed this news on to his son John, who told Washington. The commander in chief decided that Gates had not been his enemy after all, and the two of them reconnected in a stiff, formal way.21
THE WORLD HAS THEYR EYES FIXED UPON ME
On February 3 Lafayette told Adrienne, “The love of my calling and an inclination to be something in the military line…together with my friendship for General Washington and an estimable president [Laurens] now at the head of Congress, plus the advances I have already made for this American cause—these are the reasons that send me so far in the winter.” He looked forward to acclaim at home. “The idea of liberating all of New France and freeing it from a heavy yoke is too splendid to stop there,” he crowed. He expected his success in Canada to attract a great many Frenchmen to the American cause. Lest anybody in France believe his assignment was piffling, “[t]he number of troops I shall have under me, which would be negligible in Europe, is considerable in America.”22
Lafayette greatly admired Greene, an iron man notorious for going many days without sleep, spending nights on campaign doing paperwork and writing letters. The marquis, already addicted to letter writing, emulated him. Letters poured out of his
tent nightly, most of them designed to cover his political rear—he had learned a thing or two from the backstabbing court at Versailles. He penned a farewell to Henry Laurens, buttering him up, and adding, “Indeed my dear Sir you must have a great indulgence for me if you pardon mon griffonage [my scrawl].” The next day he defended Washington. “I was thinking of the title of that man going to Canada,” meaning himself. He did not want to be called commander in chief, but “only general and commander of the northern army,” so as not to undercut Washington’s authority.23
Lafayette needed political protection, because he did have a Trojan horse in his camp. It was not Duer, as he suspected, but Gates’ chief of staff, Robert Troup. They butted heads first at Valley Forge, where Lafayette was waiting for the roads to clear before heading out, and Troup insisted on going on. Gates’ agent sent his chief a stream of reports running him down. “I left the marquis at Lancaster,” he began. “He seems to be strongly tinctured with the Fabian principles of head-quarters.” He thought that Lafayette would reach Albany too late in the season to do anything. Troup rode ahead and met Conway, who believed that “the cabal at head quarters” wanted to replace him with de Kalb to prevent Conway from receiving his share of glory.24
Lafayette knew something was going on behind his back. He also learned that the men, money, and supplies promised him would not be there when he reached Albany. Assuming that the Conway Cabal was setting him up for failure, he counterattacked, making Gates liable for any future blame. “This project is yours, Sir,” he told him on February 7, “therefore you must make it succeed. If I had not depended so much on you I would not have undertaken the operation.”25
Lafayette trudged toward his destination, his doubts growing with each step. “I go on very slowly sometimes pierced by rain, sometimes covered with snow, and not thinking many handsome thoughts about the projected incursion into Canada,” he told Washington on the ninth. “Lake Champlain is very cold for producing the least bit of laurels, and if I am neither drawned neither starv’d I’l be as proud as if I had gained two battles.” Then he burst out in homesickness. “Could I believe one single instant,” he wailed, “that this pompous command of a northern army will let your excellency forget a little an absent friend, then i would send the project to the place it comes from. But I dare hope that you will remember me sometimes…. It is a very melancholy idea for me that I ca’nt follow your fortune as near your person as I could wish.”26
Lafayette’s friends in Congress had started to cover his rear. On February 11, while he was slogging through the snow, the Committee of Conference voiced its “deep concern” about the Canadian expedition. If it failed, “it would produce desertion among the troops…disgrace to our arms, and all its consequences upon our money, upon our people, upon our friends in Europe, and upon the enemies we have in our own bowels…. The army in Canada tho crowned with laurels must…undoubtedly starve.” On February 24 Congress told Lafayette to conduct himself “according to the probability of success.”27
When the marquis had reached Albany on the seventeenth, he had found nothing waiting for him except fewer than 1,200 underfed men. The militia was nowhere in sight, because Stark had not been notified. He asked the acting quartermaster for a full report, and the officer shot back that he had everything lined up, so his department could not be faulted if the expedition failed. Lafayette asked town officials in Albany for help getting men and supplies. He heard from McDougall, who said he was not healthy enough to serve with him and offered advice on how to avoid Burgoyne’s fate. Ten days later, McDougall told Greene that the project was a disaster in the making and that Lafayette was being set up to take the blame.28
Albany officials told him that the troops lacked winter clothing. There was no chance of getting any, or enough men, or other supplies. Although the state had given the quartermaster authority to impress supplies, there simply were not enough in the neighborhood. The people of Albany would help in any way they could, meaning not much.29
Lafayette sent a stiff rebuke to Conway, complaining that he had not heard from him. “All these circumstances, besides your military knowledge, & experience enable you to advise me better than any body” and help the expedition succeed.30
Conway thought the situation was a mess, telling Gates that the number of men was far short of what was expected by the Board of War, they were poorly clothed and supplied, and they had not been paid for five months. “The intelligence from Canada is not encouraging,” he added. “Indeed I found here a general aversion to the expedition.” He told Lafayette that his instructions did not mean that he must go ahead with the invasion with too few men, but if the marquis ordered him to march anyway, he would.31
Lafayette recognized that the invasion could not happen and decided that the whole thing had been planned to embarrass him in France. He turned to Laurens, to “explain my heart to my friend, and let him know which hell of blunders, madness and deception I am involved in.” The situation was so bad that not even Conway could be blamed for it. Feeling betrayed, he warned, “The world has theyr eyes fixed upon me.” People would laugh at him, and he would be almost ashamed to show his face in public. “I’l publish the whole history,” he vowed, “I’l publish my instructions with notes through the world, and I’l loose rather the honor of twenty Gates and twenty boards of war, than to let my own reputation be hurted in the least thing.”32
The boy general appealed to Washington for comfort. “Why am I so far from you,” he cried, “and what business had that board of war to hurry me through the ice and snow without knowing what I schould do, neither what they were doing themselves?” He had learned that the leaders of the 1775 invasion had warned against trying it again. He had been “schamefully deceived by the board of war,” he charged. His reputation worried him the most, because his friends in Europe knew that he was in command. “The people will be in great expectations, and what schall I answer?” Again, being laughed at was his greatest fear, and he asked Washington to bail him out and give him a real shot at glory.33
Lafayette made sure everyone knew that he had been misled. “I do not make any complaints,” he told Congress, then offered several pages full of them. He threatened again to publish the truth for the world to see. “What my perhaps too quick and too warm heart must feel after being so much deceived, every sensible man must have some idea of.”34
“I am sorry,” he told Gates, “that a so displeasant affair came through your hands, but I am not in any doubt that you were fully convinced of every thing you induced me to built my hopes upon.” To the governor of New York he claimed that all would have gone well if he had been allowed to start the campaign earlier. If proper orders had been given, proper money spent, and proper measures taken on time, he “schould have been able to do great and useful things.” Nobody could blame Lafayette for any part of the mess.35
Lafayette was responsible for one of his difficulties, however. He spent about $50,000 out of his pocket while he was in Albany, then lost the receipts. This interfered with getting compensation from Congress until he found and forwarded some of the receipts in April. The expedition was a personal loss to him in every way.36
The marquis told Laurens how “distressed and unhappy” he was, because of “a deception, a treachery, what you please…Certainly there is some villainy.” Alleging that Gates and Conway were plotting evil, he dreaded what the newspapers were saying, and asked the president to send him clippings.37
Once again Lafayette turned to his adoptive father. “I meet with an occasion of wraïting to your excellency which I wo’nt miss by any means,” he began, “even schould I be affraïd of becoming tedious and troublesome. But if they have sent me far from you for I do’nt know what purpose, at least I must make some little use of my pen to prevent all communication be cut of[f] between your excellency and me. I have writen lately to you my distressing, ridiculous, foolish, and indeed nameless situation.” The boy who had been laughed at on the queen’s dance floor did not want th
at to happen again. “I confess, my dear general, that I find myself of very quick feelings whenever my reputation and glory are concerned in anything. It is very hard indeed that such a part of my happiness without which I ca’nt live, would depend upon the schemes of some fools…. I am more unhappy than I ever was.” He wished Washington was with him “to give me some advices…. I am at a loss how to act, and indeed I do’nt know what I am being here myself.”38
Having gotten that out of his system, Lafayette took up his responsibilities, reorganizing the troops and instituting training and disciplinary regulations. He paid off most of the army’s bills and lit a fire under his quartermaster, and some supplies rolled in. But he heard nothing from Congress or the Board of War. The only good news was that de Kalb had joined him.39
While Lafayette fretted in the snows of New York, Laurens tried to bail him out. The marquis’ letters had reached York by the end of February and were passed around. When some delegates assumed that Lafayette was under Gates’ orders rather than Washington’s, Laurens stepped in. Gates had violated all agreements by ordering Lafayette to report directly to him rather than through Washington. The president persuaded Congress on March 2 to give Lafayette permission to call the whole thing off. To soothe his wounded feelings, the resolution would “at the same time, inform him that Congress entertain a high sense of his prudence, activity and zeal, and that they are fully persuaded nothing has, or would have been wanting on his part, or on the part of the officers who accompanied him, to give the expedition the utmost effect.”40