Adopted Son Page 34

  The officers scattered to their assigned bedrooms to clean up, wondering where Arnold was. A servant told them that Mrs. Arnold was “indisposed.” Lafayette had hardly begun to arrange his clothes when Hamilton broke in and told him to go to Washington at once. He rushed into the front room, where he found his adoptive father standing in the middle, the papers Hamilton had given him shaking in his hand. He was in tears. “Arnold has betrayed us!” he cried. “Whom can we trust now?”55

  Lafayette and Hamilton took the documents and learned what had happened. Militia had stopped a horseman near the British lines and found messages in Arnold’s handwriting, outlining his plan to sell West Point to the enemy. Another paper revealed that the captive was Major John André, Clinton’s acting adjutant general. Washington confronted Peggy, who became hysterical. She was such a good actress that she fooled them all into believing that she knew nothing of her husband’s plot. In fact, she had been in it up to her lovely neck.

  After Washington ordered Wayne’s troops to secure the forts, and put Greene in command of the district, the party sat down to the meal they had been looking forward to. “Never was there a more melancholy dinner,” Lafayette recalled. “The general was silent and reserved, and none of us spoke of what we were thinking…. I have never seen General Washington so affected by any circumstance.”56

  Lafayette put the best face on the situation. “You will shudder at the danger we have run. You will wonder at the miraculous chain of accidents and unforeseen events that has saved us,” he told La Luzerne. “We are all shocked by this vile conspiracy and amazed at the miraculous manner in which it came to our knowledge,” he told Rochambeau, assuring him, “It is the first case of treason in our army…but the instance grieves us as much as it disgusts us.” He told Vergennes, “This whole affair proves only the greed of Arnold and has no other consequences than to the abhorrence inspired by his sordid conduct.” Rochambeau replied that he was “overcome with dismay and with delight at its exposure,” while Vergennes said, “It seems that this signal mark of Providence’s protection, which alone caused this detestable plot to fail, should be an encouragement for the United States.” Lafayette could relax—France would not take Arnold’s betrayal as a sign of weakness on the American side.57

  Having covered Washington’s flank, Lafayette worked up a lust for revenge against Arnold. The man had betrayed his country and its cause, but most of all he had betrayed Lafayette’s adoptive father, and that made it personal with him. Conway, Gates, Mifflin, Lee—all paled in comparison. Lafayette had entered this war looking for glory and vengeance against the despised Anglais, but they were abstractions. There had been one individual he would have aimed for specifically if he could find him. Now Arnold the traitor joined Phillips the gunner as Lafayette’s personal enemy.

  Arnold’s confederate André was in custody. Greene summoned a court-martial on September 29, 1780, seating Lafayette, Knox, Stirling, and eleven other generals to try the British officer. There was no doubt about the outcome, and the verdict was unanimous. He had been captured under a false name, in civilian clothes, and carrying incriminating documents. That made him a spy, not a prisoner of war, so he was condemned to death. He asked to be shot but was turned down. He would be hanged, as befitted a spy. Hamilton argued in his favor, and citizens in the neighborhood begged for mercy, but the decision stood.

  André was twenty-nine years old but looked much younger. Baby-faced, with soft features and dark, liquid eyes, he was friendly, a good conversationalist, and a talented artist and poet. It was impossible not to like him, and Lafayette and Hamilton made the mistake of getting to know him before he was hanged on October 2. Seeing death on the battlefield had not prepared them for the horror of watching a young man strangle to death, his feet off the ground. They were both shaken.

  “Poor André suffers to-day,” Hamilton wrote his fiancée. “Every thing that is amiable in virtue, in fortitude, in delicate sentiment, and accomplished manners, pleads for him; but hard-hearted policy calls for a sacrifice. He must die.” Distraught, he tried to justify his own part in the proceedings. “When André’s tale comes to be told, and present resentment is over, the refusing him the privilege of choosing the manner of his death will be branded with too much obstinacy.” He wrote an even more tormented letter to John Laurens.58

  Lafayette was torn up over his role. “Arnold’s baseness and villainy surpass in their details all that I have ever read about that sort of thing,” he told Noailles. “But what has truly afflicted me is the necessity of hanging…a charming man who conducted himself throughout, and died, like a hero. This severity was necessary…. [T]his man’s death, although inevitable in my opinion, left me with a feeling of sadness and respect for his character. I truly suffered in condemning him.”59

  The marquis even unburdened himself to Adrienne, in an exception to his usually boastful letters laced with loving platitudes. “He was a charming man,” he told her. “He conducted himself in a manner so frank, so noble, so delicate that, during the three days that we held him, I had the foolishness to let myself acquire a true affection for him. In strongly stating my opinion in favor of sending him to the gallows, I could not prevent myself from regretting it deeply.”60

  HE MADE IT A RULE TO FOLLOW GENERAL WASHINGTON IN EVERYTHING

  The appointment of Gates was Congress’ last major intervention into the military conduct of the war. When Washington proposed sending Greene to replace him in September, the lawmakers agreed. He sent Steuben along with him. Before they started south, word arrived of an American victory at Kings Mountain, South Carolina, on October 7, 1780, when frontier riflemen whipped a corps of British regulars and Tory partisans, taking hundreds of prisoners and about 1,400 stand of arms. Cornwallis pulled back into middle South Carolina.61

  Lafayette poured out letters to France, begging for more aid. When he learned that Henry Laurens, on his way to Paris to plead the American case, had been captured at sea by the British, he asked Adrienne to see Vergennes about getting him freed. She tried, but Laurens finished the war in the Tower of London, accused of “high treason.”62

  On October 7, 1780, the Light Division raided Bergen, New Jersey, bagging fifteen prisoners without losing a man. Lafayette and Hamilton drew up a plan for a larger raid on Staten Island; Lafayette also recommended his friend for a line command, but Washington turned that down. They marched out in the dark of October 27, but the quartermasters did not show up with the promised boats. Lafayette called it off, blistering the quartermasters for their “many blunders.” “I confess, my dear general,” he raged, “that I cannot reconcile my feelings to the idea that by this neglect I have lost a most happy opportunity.” He felt frustrated not only on his own account but also “for all the officers and men who had promis’d themselves so much glory on the occasion.”63

  Lafayette looked for other ways to take a shot at glory, and almost daily he and Washington discussed taking the offensive. On October 30, he proposed an assault on Fort Washington, at the northern end of Manhattan. The French court had often complained to him about the inactivity of the American army, he said. Washington cooled him off. He wanted to do something, but with the French idle at Newport there was no support for the attack. “It is impossible my dear Marquis,” he told him; “we must consult our means rather than our wishes, and not endeavour to better our affairs by attempting things, which for want of success may make them worse.”64

  Washington asked his generals how to help Greene in the South, and Lafayette proposed that he lead his Light Division in that direction. When his spies told him that Clinton might leave New York, he renewed the proposal; failing that, he wanted to take a stab at Staten Island again. He kept pressing for action, but the Main Army lacked the resources to match his ambitions. The heaviest blow fell on November 26. Preparing to go into winter quarters, Washington disbanded the Light Division, returning its men to their home regiments.65

  When Washington asked his generals to recommend someon
e for adjutant general, Hamilton approached Lafayette for help getting the job. Restive on the commander’s staff, he looked for any way out. He asked the marquis to write in his behalf, but specifically not to speak to Washington in person. Lafayette agreed, saying that he knew “the generals friendship and gratitude for you, my dear Hamilton, both are greater than you perhaps imagine.” But his letter arrived too late; Washington had already appointed someone else. Hamilton was in Albany at his own wedding, and Lafayette wrote him, “I have been angry with you for not permitting my speaking immediately to the general on your affair. This curs’d way of a letter you have insisted upon” meant that Washington “had innocently put it out of his own power to oblige you.” He saw the strain growing between Hamilton and Washington, but he could not do anything about it.66

  The Frenchman’s personal finances were in a mess, again. Morizot had begged him to economize, but his only concession was to take two of his own servants with him so that he need not hire help in America. On November 28, Morizot complained to Lafayette’s aunt that bills arriving in France had overdrawn his account by 12,000 livres because he had bought two carriages and incurred “expenses stemming from an independent command.” He asked Mademoiselle du Motier to help “extricate us from this embarrassment. It would be horrible, if Monsieur the Marquis’ obligations should return to America without having been honored here.”67

  Still Lafayette emptied his pockets to hire spies and to entertain a mob of French officers who left Rhode Island on leave to visit him. They wanted to get into action and applied to Lafayette and Washington for commissions. The commander in chief treated them to a dinner and a tour of West Point but declined their offers unless they got leave from Rochambeau. When Ternay died suddenly, of an undiagnosed fever, in mid-December, Lafayette snorted that it was of mortification over his idleness.68

  The marquis got Washington to send him to Philadelphia as his agent, to lobby for supplies and action to relieve Greene. Partisan warfare had broken out in the South, and British raiders operated with uncommon savagery. “I hate the idea of being from you for so long a time,” Lafayette told his adoptive father. “But I think I ought not to stay idle.” He took his French friends with him, enjoyed a round of parties and battlefield tours, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He kept his superior informed of everything, including negotiations with the new Spanish minister in Philadelphia. Spain had entered the war in America, and Lafayette pressured the minister to attack the British in Florida, until Washington told him to drop it. The young general filled his commander in on the latest news from France, renewed his efforts to rouse Rochambeau to action, and begged King Louis for men, ships, and money.69

  When Lafayette again asked for permission to join Greene, his adoptive father put the matter in his hands and prepared letters of introduction to southern officials. “In all places, and at all times, my best wishes for your health, honor & glory will accompany you.” Everyone Lafayette talked to advised him to stay with Washington. “I am more than ever puzzled, my dear general, to know what to do,” he wrote. “I also candidly confess that private affection for you makes me hate the idea of leaving the man I love the most in the world to seek for uncertainties at a period when he may want me.” Washington returned his affection, but he had “already put it absolutely in your choice” to go or stay. The young man was torn. He asked Greene for an invitation, then retracted the request, deciding to stay with Washington. As he told Hamilton, “He is going to be alone, you know how tenderly I love him, and I don’t like the idea of abandonning him.”70

  When Congress decided to appoint another delegate to France to beg for new loans, Lafayette was asked for his recommendation. He knew how frustrated Hamilton had become after four years as an aide-de-camp, so he recommended him, and so did John Laurens. The lawmakers chose Laurens instead and directed him to consult with Washington, the French commanders, and Lafayette before he left. “I am by order of Congress to have a conference with him,” the marquis told Washington, “and intend giving him many letters for France. As in your instructions to Laurens the presence of one who knows these people may be agreable to you, I shall set out for head quarters.”71

  “One might say that he made it a rule to follow General Washington in everything,” Virginia commercial agent Philip Mazzei observed of Lafayette. It was not hard for anyone who saw them together to understand why. Rochambeau’s aide the comte de Dumas delivered messages to Washington that winter and spent time at headquarters. He was “particularly struck,” he said, “with the marks of affection which the general showed to his pupil, his adopted son the marquis de la Fayette. Seated opposite to him, he looked at him with pleasure and listened to him with manifest interest.” Dumas joined Washington’s party on a tour of West Point. After they visited the forts and reviewed the garrison, “as the day was declining, and we were going to mount our horses, the general perceived that M. de la Fayette, in consequence of his old wound, was very much fatigued. ‘It will be better,’ said he, ‘to return by water; the tide will assist us in ascending against the stream.’” When the boat got into trouble in rough weather, Washington took the helm and guided it through rocks and ice to shore—all this to relieve the tired Lafayette from having to take a horseback ride.72

  Washington loved the young man so much that he pampered him. Still, the time might come when he had to send him into danger once again. Arnold had landed in Virginia.

  ELEVEN

  The Boy Cannot Escape Me!

  (JANUARY–JULY 1781)

  Now the method of employing men is to use the avaricious and the stupid, the wise and the brave, and to give responsibility to each in situations that suit him. Do not charge people to do what they cannot do.

  —CHANG YÜ

  Lafayette and Laurens set out for Washington’s headquarters at New Windsor, and on January 1, 1781, they learned that 2,500 Pennsylvania troops of the Continental Line had mutinied, killing two officers. The military mob headed toward Philadelphia to present its grievances to Congress and the state government. The complaints were real enough. The soldiers were unfed and unclothed, they had not been paid in fifteen months, and their enlistments had been arbitrarily extended for a year. Lafayette, Laurens, and General Arthur St. Clair rode to meet the mutineers. The marquis told La Luzerne that “it must be admitted that some of them have a right to complain about the interpretations put on their enlistments as well as the manner in which some of the officers received their protests.”1

  He was “the only one for whom they admitted having a depth of friendship,” Lafayette said. “I preach peace, and unless I were sure I could kill all of them if I wanted, I would not fire a single shot.” The mutineers met with him at Princeton, and he urged them to go back to camp, but their blood was up. They told him that they would die to the last man under his orders but that he did not know all they had suffered, and they would “see to it that their country does them justice.”2

  The marquis was inclined to recommend harsh measures, but as he said, it would be “frightening to spend one’s winter killing each other.” Although he thought the men had been led astray by a few hotheads, he was sympathetic to them because of their sufferings over four years, and especially the “verified deception in their enlistments.” The whole situation was “very unfortunate.”3

  Washington could not intervene because the state authorities stepped in. They negotiated back pay and promised food and clothing. When Clinton sent an emissary from New York to invite the mutineers to go over to the British, the Pennsylvanians seized him, and he was later hanged as a spy. It was all over by the seventeenth of January. The republican Washington explained to the royalist Lafayette and Rochambeau that since the civil powers had taken over the dispute “there would have been an impropriety in my interfering in their conciliatory measures, which would not have suited the principles of military discipline.”4

  The New Jersey Line rose at Pompton, New Jersey, over the same grievances, and Washingto
n asked the state to let him handle it. He surrounded the mutineers, arrested their ringleaders, and put two of them in front of a firing squad. No matter the complaint, troops who pressed it by mutiny or desertion had to be put down quickly and hard, or the army would fall apart. Already, half the Pennsylvanians had gone home.5

  Lafayette could turn any disaster into an opportunity. “Let us inform Versailles in very strong terms,” he urged La Luzerne, “without money we shall be unable to budge, and what is worse, there will be no means of bringing us food where we shall be staying.” He sent his own pleas to several French ministers, asserting that more financial aid was essential to the survival of America and its Revolution. Everything now depended on Laurens’ ability to get more out of the French government.6

  YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT YOUR CORPS IS A PART OF THIS ARMY

  Lafayette gave Laurens a bale of letters, messages, and instructions that included letters to all the king’s ministers, d’Estaing, Franklin, Adrienne, d’Ayen, and about a dozen others. When he learned that Thomas Paine would accompany Laurens, he loaded him down also. He asked Adrienne to help Laurens out. “If I were in France he would dine often with me,” he said, and he would introduce Laurens to important people in Versailles. “In my absence I beg you to be so good as to take my place.”7

  The young general also offered advice to his friend, whose fiery temper he knew well. “But I again repeat,” he told Laurens, “that you will there find great deal of willingness to help us. If they do but little, which I think would be a great folly, it will, I believe, be because they won’t [be] thinking themselves able to do better—so that don’t get angry, and be sure that theyr intentions are good.”8