Adopted Son Read online

  Henry Laurens had taken on the role of uncle where the prickly marquis was concerned, because he understood that the boy general was lonely, uncertain, and far from home. It cost nothing to give him praise, reassurance, a pat on the back now and then—or a whack on the head when that was in order. Laurens wanted to keep him from making decisions that he would regret later, such as returning to France in a huff.

  “I would be criminally silent were I not to declare,” the president told him, “the intentions of Congress respecting your Excellency’s honour & merits, are altogether one.” He declined to answer Lafayette’s insinuations about Gates and others. “But I would deal gently with those whose errors are of the head,” he advised, “whose general tone speaks the public good.” He wanted to avoid “every whisper which may tend to fan the flame of party.” Then he laid it on thick, enough to make the boy’s head spin: “If ever man stood on a firm base, you do my dear general, you are possessed of what Bacon calls the ‘vantage ground of Truth’—from whence you may look down upon the crooked vales & paths below.” He was horrified at the idea that Lafayette would leave the United States at a critical time. The marquis’ record, he assured him, and the resolves of Congress both guarded his reputation. “Fall the blame of the late abortion where it ought or where it may…not the smallest spark or speck of censure can possibly light on the Marquis de Lafayette; that general has performed every thing which had been prescribed to him.”41

  Laurens knew as well as Washington that the young general needed continual reassurance. The president had better communications to Albany, so while Lafayette was detached on the Canadian project he stepped into Washington’s place. “Once more,” Laurens told him on March 6, “be assured you have gained great reputation in this country.” The Board of War planned to recall Lafayette and de Kalb to Valley Forge, and Conway would remain where he was. “Do not dear marquis suffer this to discompose you.” Gates said that should be agreeable to “your Excellency” because “there is no command yonder worthy of you.” That was a quiet way of saying that they knew that Lafayette had been fishing for a chance to salvage his reputation by attacking New York.42

  Some in Congress feared that a recall to Valley Forge might embarrass Lafayette, so the delegates postponed instructions until they had heard from him. Laurens advised him to show some discretion, telling him how properly to address the legislature. Lafayette should ask “how you are to be disposed of & so forth, in which your Excellency needs no hint or information from me. Permit me to intreat you sir…avoid disclosing that kind of resentment which may bring on disagreeable altercation.” He should “make a sacrifice to peace by passing quietly over the bagatelle.” In other words, let sleeping dogs, like Conway and Gates, lie.43

  Washington received Lafayette’s letters from Albany on March 10. As always, he knew what to say. “I…hasten to dispel those fears respecting your reputation, which are excited only by an uncommon degree of sensibility,” he advised. “You seem to apprehend that censure proportioned to the disappointed expectations of the world, will fall on you in consequence of the failure of the Canadian Expedition.” But the mere fact that he “had received so manifest a proof of the good opinion and confidence of Congress as an important detached command” would read well in Europe. Moreover, “I am persuaded that everyone will applaud your prudence in renouncing a project, in pursuing which you would vainly have attempted physical impossibilities…. However sensible your ardour for glory may make you feel this disappointment, you may be assured that your character stands as fair as it ever did, and that no new enterprise is necessary to wipe off this imaginary stain.”

  Washington counseled against attacking New York, because it was bound to fail. Mounted from so far away, an attack could not be kept secret. The American Fabius wanted to wait for the enemy to present an opportunity, “and success would principally depend upon the suddenness of the attempt.” As for the rest of Lafayette’s situation, “[y]ou undoubtedly have determined judiciously in waiting the farther orders of Congress. Whether they allow me the pleasure of seeing you shortly or destine you to a longer absence, you may assure yourself of [my] sincere good wishes.”44

  Lafayette did not see this, or the advice from Laurens, for some time. He was off among les sauvages.

  KAYEHEANLA

  With de Kalb on hand, the marquis felt free to leave Albany to answer a request for help from General Philip Schuyler. Congress had appointed Schuyler a commissioner to negotiate with the Iroquois and allied tribes, and Schuyler thought the Frenchman could play on their old ties to France and get the tribes to transfer their allegiance from Britain to the United States. Lafayette, Schuyler, and other commissioners traveled by sleigh forty miles northwest to Johnstown to meet with the Six Nations at Mohawk River. British agents had been bribing the Indians to raid farms and settlements on the northern frontier. Lafayette heard very lurid stories involving scalping and cannibalism. “‘It is thus,’” as he put it, “the Indians were told as they drank at their council fires, ‘that you must drink the blood of the rebels.’”45

  When the commission arrived, Lafayette was pleased that the sauvages knew who he was. They were impressed by his good looks, his bearing, and his magnificent uniform, and they enjoyed the gifts he handed out, including mirrors, rum, brandy, and gold coins called louis d’or. The Frenchman had never seen anything like the spectacle before him: “Five hundred men, women, and children, gaudily painted and bedecked with feathers, their ears pierced, their noses ornamented with jewels, and their nearly naked bodies marked with various designs, attended these councils. As the old men smoked, they discoursed very well on politics. The balance of power would be their goal, if their drunkenness with rum, like drunkenness with ambition in Europe, did not often divert them from it.”46

  One of Lafayette’s aides was not so impressed. “Europe’s beggar seemed less disgusting than America’s savage,” he growled. But then he had not been adopted into their nation, as Lafayette was. They called him Kayeheanla, after a great warrior of their past. Compared to fancy British goods, the presents the commissioners handed out were piddling, but the Indians signed a treaty with the Americans. As Lafayette wryly concluded, “[A] few of the Indians observed it; the troubles were at least suspended.”47

  The marquis ordered that a scattering of small posts be built to guard the frontier. He also headed off a mutiny at Johnstown by giving the men their back pay out of his own money. He had returned to Albany by March 11, annoyed that he had heard nothing from Gates or Congress. “I expect with the greatest impatience letters from the Board of War where I’l be acquainted of what I am to do,” he fired off to Gates. “We want monney, sir, and monney will be spoken by me till I will be enabled to pay our poor soldiers.” He told Laurens that the troops were in an uproar over not being paid. Without money or clothes they could not have soldiers, he declared.48

  Letters from Laurens and Gates, ending the campaign, arrived the next day. Gates ordered Lafayette and de Kalb to Valley Forge, to resume their former duties. Lafayette was instructed to turn over his command to Conway, and he took that as an insult. He exploded again, threatening to lead all the French officers back to France. His hatred of Conway knew no bounds.49

  On March 13, 1778, as if the members expected such an outburst, Congress authorized Washington to recall Lafayette and de Kalb to the Main Army. Lafayette, having received his adoptive father’s and Laurens’ cautionary advice, realized that he had overstepped his bounds. He told Washington, “I must confess you, my dear general, that I have been too hasty” in earlier letters. He had since learned that Congress had been “kind enough as to expect knowing my sentiments before making any disposition of general officers. I assure you, my dear general, that I will do very chearfully ever thing they will propose to me in such a manner—you know too well my heart to be in any doubt but I schall consider myself very happy to service with you…. Farewell, my most dear and beloved general, do’nt forget your northern friend, and be certai
n that his sentiments for you will end with his life.”50

  Lafayette promised not to lead the other officers back to France, and a week later he apologized to Laurens for his hotheadedness. The same day, March 20, he sent a formal report to the president, thanking Congress for its approval and offering to remain in America and serve the cause in any capacity. He feared that his temper could have cost him his commission.51

  On March 20, Washington formally ordered Lafayette and de Kalb to return to the Main Army and resume divisional commands. “I anticipate the pleasure of seeing you,” he closed. Two days later Lafayette heard rumors to that effect from York, and told his adoptive father how pleased he was about it. “I seize with the gretest pleasure the first occasion of telling you how happy I have been to see in your last favor a new assurance of those sentiments of yours so dear to my heart.”52

  As couriers galloped through the spring rains and mud, Laurens wrote Lafayette on March 24. Congress, he told him, did not mean to insult him when it asked that he turn over his command to Conway. Instead, the lawmakers had not yet “resolved on a disposition for General Conway.” The Irish-Frenchman had been sent off to Peekskill to serve under McDougall. Laurens chided Lafayette for his intemperate remarks and demanded that the young fellow show courtesy and decorum in his correspondence.53

  Before he received that, and still fretting that he had overdone it, Lafayette wrote to Washington again. He could not refrain from another jab at the Board of War. “Oh american freedom what schall become of you, if you are in such hands!” He told his adoptive father that he had given up the idea of attacking New York and his only desire was to rejoin the general. The sole condition he had made in accepting the northern command, he said, had been not to be under any orders but those of General Washington. “I seem to have had an anticipation of our future friendship, and what I have done out of esteem and respect for your excellency’s name and reputation, I schould do now out of mere love for General Washington himself.”54

  Lafayette received his orders to rejoin Washington at last. He and de Kalb packed up on April 1, 1778, and headed home to Valley Forge. So ended the “irruption” into Canada, a botched enterprise that never should have started. Despite his temper tantrums, the marquis emerged from the mess with his reputation intact, even heightened by his good judgment in not going forward without enough resources. His star had risen along with Washington’s, while Gates’ was on the wane. As for Conway, his light grew dimmer by the day.

  Conway had tried to cozy up to Lafayette and others, but the remarks that started the “cabal” controversy had been unforgivable. He was a pariah—in his own words, “ordered from place to place.” He blundered one last time, again offering his resignation. On April 28, 1778, Congress voted overwhelmingly to accept it. He exploded to Gates, “I had no thoughts of resigning,” then spent the next several weeks in deranged attempts to persuade Congress to reconsider, to deny his resignation, to resign again, to ask for reinstatement—all to no avail. For reasons that never became clear, he challenged General John Cadwalader to a duel, and on July 4, 1778, the Irish-Frenchman took a bullet in the mouth. He claimed to be on his deathbed, and wrote to Washington to express his “sincere grief for having done, written, or said anything disagreeable to your Excellency.” The unforgiving commander in chief did not answer. Conway did not die; he just went back to France.55

  THE PROPEREST MAN WE COULD CHOOSE

  Lafayette and de Kalb reached Valley Forge on April 8 and found the place transformed. It was still the grimy collection of hovels that they had left over two months earlier, but Greene had made headway on the supply problem. The men were eating better, although their clothes were still rags. The biggest changes, Henry Laurens told the marquis, were because “Baron Stüben is making great improvements and giving much satisfaction to every body.”56

  Lafayette looked forward to meeting this man, with whom he had already exchanged letters. He knew that the newcomer had been spending a lot of time with Washington and was probably headed for a high commission, so he was jealous. Within a year Lafayette gave him a left-handed compliment as “an old Prussian whose methodical mediocrity perfected the organization and tactics of the army.”57

  Frederick William Augustus von Steuben, as he called himself in America (he changed his names often), was also known as Baron von Steuben. He had arrived in Washington’s camp on February 23, 1778, preceded by letters of introduction that described him as a former lieutenant general in the Prussian army, almost right-hand man to Frederick the Great. It was all a fraud, as Washington knew before he arrived. The forty-seven-year-old officer had risen no higher than captain on the Prussian general staff, although Frederick had commended him. Since the end of the Seven Years’ War, he had wandered among minor German states as a military adviser to their rulers. One had presented him with a knighthood and the honorary title of Freiherr, so he had some right to call himself a baron. His inflated résumé was the work of two comedians in Paris—Franklin and Caron de Beaumarchais, chief conduit of French supplies for America, better known as the author of The Barber of Seville.58

  Frederick William Augustus, Baron von Steuben, by C.W. Peale, 1781–82. The Prussian drillmaster not only overhauled the army’s drill and tactics, permitting the successes at Barren Hill and Monmouth, but he created the first regulations of the American army, some elements of which survive in today’s regulations. (INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK)

  Steuben was a far cry from some of the earlier European volunteers. The American agents and the French war minister instinctively recognized that he held great promise, and they promoted him to lieutenant general to cover the fact that he was really an unemployed fugitive from debt collectors. Washington greeted him cautiously. After long discussions with him about the army’s problems the commander in chief decided to see what he could do. Within a month, the newcomer earned the role of acting inspector general and Washington’s recommendation that Congress commission him as major general. John Laurens told his father that Steuben “would be the properest man we could choose for the office,” in place of the “obnoxious” Conway.59

  Steuben was a large man, impressive in the saddle, but once he dismounted it was apparent that his height was all above the waist. His comically short legs were as disarming as the friendliness that no Prussian discipline could erase from his broad face, with its potato nose, ruddy complexion, and twinkling eyes. He was a man of winning good humor, and his entourage was likewise affable. It included his translator, Pierre-Etienne Duponceau, a small, owlish schoolteacher so nearsighted that he bumped into trees. Steuben could not maintain the stern, aloof manners expected of a Prussian general. There was a lot of bluster in his makeup, but his storms were mostly noise. He simply liked people, especially Americans, and he was fond of the young and mixed with them easily. In an army where the gulf between senior and junior had always been wide, Steuben became as popular as he was respected.

  Washington asked the baron to look over the situation in the army. “Matters had to be remedied,” Steuben said later, “but where to commence was the great difficulty…. The arms at Valley Forge were in a horrible condition,” the men were “literally naked, some of them in the fullest sense of the word.” As for discipline, “I may safely say that no such thing existed. In the first place there was no regular formation.”60

  Things were even worse than they looked. There was no uniform organization, returns were usually incomplete, and the army lost between 5,000 and 8,000 muskets in every campaign, carried away by deserters and by men at discharge. The troops were poorly managed, “scattered about in every direction.”61

  Steuben saw more clearly than Washington that European methods could not simply be imposed on Americans, and he observed, “In our European armies a man who has been drilled for three months is called a recruit; here, in two months I must have a soldier.” He planned to simplify the drill manuals, developing a new system that softened British rigidity with French and Prussian prac
ticality. In another departure from Old World practices, he said inspectors must examine financial accounts. At least, someone should do that for the Continental Army.62

  He began with drill, because the army knew neither how to drill nor how to march, limiting its performance in battle. Giving the Prussian his head, on March 17, 1778 Washington ordered an additional hundred men assigned to his own guard. Training the formation began two days later.

  Steuben spoke no English at first and relied on pantomime and personal demonstration. He trained one squad first, then supervised assistants who trained others. Once the squads were trained, he drilled them as a company. After the model guard company was ready, he extended his system to battalions, then brigades, and in three weeks maneuvered an entire division for Washington’s review. With the commander in chief’s backing, he forced the officers to supervise their own troops, instead of leaving it to sergeants.63

  Steuben’s lack of English caused him problems. He wrote his drill regulations in French, which Duponceau translated into literary English. The translator was no military man, so Laurens and Hamilton edited them into military parlance, and Steuben memorized the text as well as his broken English allowed. Nevertheless, the phrasing of his orders sometimes scrambled the ranks. He vented his frustration with explosions of French and German profanity punctuated with loud bursts of “goddam,” his first English word.