The Ides of War , livre ebook

THE IDES OF WAR
STUDIES IN RHETORIC / COMMUNICATION
Thomas W. Benson, Series Editor
The IDES of WAR
George Washington and the Newburgh Crisis
Stephen Howard Browne
2016 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-659-9 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-660-5 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Series Editor s Preface
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Peace and Its Discontents
1. Washington s Character and the Craft of Military Leadership
2. Origins and Development of the Newburgh Crisis
3. By the dignity of your conduct : The Newburgh Address and the Language of Character
Conclusion
Appendix A: Memorial from the Officers of the Army
Appendix B: The Newburgh Circulars
Appendix C: George Washington s Speech at Newburgh
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR S PREFACE
George Washington s farewells, and his advice about farewells, occupy an important place in American public memory. Students of U.S. history know of Washington s Farewell Address-although they sometimes misquote it-and some also know of his address to Congress on resigning his commission at the end of the Revolution.
On April 19, 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a Message on the American Revolution, noting that the day marked the bicentennial of George Washington s proclamation to the Continental Army of the cessation of hostilities between the United States and Great Britain. Noting that Washington s announcement itself marked the eighth anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, President Reagan quoted from the proclamation read by Washington from the the steps of his headquarters in Newburgh, New York:
The glorious task for which we first flew to arms being thus accomplished, the liberties of our country being fully acknowledged and firmly secured . . . and the character of those who have persevered through every extremity of hardship, suffering, and danger, being immortalized by the illustrious appellation of the patriot army, nothing now remains but for the actors of this mighty scene to preserve a perfect unvarying consistency of character through the very last act; to close the drama with applause, and to retire from the military theatre with the same approbation of angels and men which has crowned all their former virtuous actions.
President Reagan s message goes on to remark that long months of diplomatic negotiation followed the cessation of hostilities, ending at last with the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783. Reagan s brief and in some ways routine commemorative message uses the patriotic celebration of a military triumph as a generic encomium on liberty and the debt owed by the nation to its warriors, then less routinely notes the months of negotiation needed until the blessings of independence, which were secured for us on the field of battle, became truly secure only when ensconced in a viable political structure. The celebration of a victory reminds us of the larger frame and becomes a lesson in civics, a turn that appears to echo the point suggested by Washington by turning the celebration of a victory into a call to close the drama with applause, and to retire from the military theatre.
In The Ides of War: George Washington and the Newburgh Crisis , Stephen Howard Browne visits an earlier and, in his telling, possibly an even more important, moment in Washington s career, in a speech that while generally well known [to historians], remains underappreciated as a key moment in the American revolutionary inheritance. In the spring of 1783, Washington and his army were encamped in Newburgh, New York, on the Hudson River. They had been at war since 1775, and most of this time the Congress and the States had been less than generous in provision of supplies and pay. Washington complained in a letter to his friend and former subordinate Alexander Hamilton of being fixed in a predicament between the sufferings of a complaining army on the one hand, and the inability of Congress and the tardiness of the States on the other.
Browne tells us how close Washington s officers were to outright mutiny, with rumors that at the end of hostilities they might refuse to put down their arms until properly compensated for their service. This was mutiny and worse-a threat to the new Republic itself and to the authority of the civil government. In a speech to his officers on March 15, 1783, in the meeting house at the Newburgh camp, Washington saved the situation. This book is the story of that speech and how it did its work, offering us an understanding of Washington s public character-itself a masterpiece of rhetorical self-fashioning-and of the circumstances and contemporary understandings that had led to the crisis.
The climax comes with Browne s analysis of the speech itself, illuminated by his detailed account of the rhetorical situation and by a patient reading of the speech as it unfolds, showing how Washington spoke not so much to impose a moral obligation on a refractory people as to invite them to become what they promised to be.
Browne s book brings us vividly back to that moment in March 1783, putting Washington s speech before us in all its drama and its crucial importance to the possibilities of an American future.
T HOMAS W. B ENSON
PREFACE
History tells us time and time again that on the day when the forces of civil government confront the forces of military might, no one knows what may follow. Americans, it is safe to say, have thought themselves to have escaped this moment: whatever others challenges we have faced, at least we have never had to deal with the prospects of a coup d tat. This view is very much mistaken. In fact we have faced such a crisis, at the very moment when this country announced its arrival on the world scene. That moment came in the spring of 1783 in a rustic meeting hall along the Hudson River near Newburgh, New York. That the crisis was resolved by the Commander in Chief of the Army of the United States by means of an address delivered to a roomful of restive and deeply disaffected officers should make this episode of particular interest to students of history, war, rhetoric-indeed, to all Americans.
I attempt in this brief volume to tell the story of what transpired on that day, to examine what was said, and to suggest something of what we may learn from the affair. My thesis holds that George Washington s Newburgh Address illustrates to stunning effect the power of human agency in brokering one of humankind s most persistent, most troublesome dilemmas: the rival claims to power of civil and military authority. At stake in this story are abiding questions about the meaning and legacy of revolution, the nature of republican government, and, ultimately, what kind of people we are and profess to be. These are admittedly large and frankly old-fashioned themes, and I make no pretensions toward a comprehensive treatment of them. But that does not make such issues any less vital, and they need to be confronted if we are to give a coherent and convincing account of ourselves. The Newburgh crisis offers us an unmatched opportunity to take these questions on. In the process, we will gain perhaps a reawakened sense of the role of rhetoric in the founding of the world s first modern republic.
Stories are by their nature selective and strategic, and this one is no different. What I have chosen to include in the telling will be apparent soon enough. What I have left out, underemphasized, or otherwise neglected can be explained only as a result of my own proclivities, limitations, and habits of composition. The Newburgh crisis was born of long-festering wounds to the pride of the officer elite; while we are not typically inclined to extend a great deal of sympathy to such a class these days, the wounds were real. More to the point of this book, the hardships incurred by Washington s officers, though scarcely unique or even all that dire, created the material conditions for principled resistance. These conditions in turn led to the crisis that reached its reckoning on the ides of March 1783. How the crisis was resolved-not through force but through a singular act of symbolic inducement-underwrites the account and centers, as it must, on the person of George Washington. Here some explanation is in order.
Historians of American culture, a conscientious and disputative lot, have for some time now felt themselves obliged to make clear their party allegiances. This is not unusual: most scholars feel the same need, and for perfectly reputable reasons. As academic interests surge and recede with the tides of time, there will inevitably be those who miss the old ways and resent the vague suspicion that their interests and methods are somehow dated or, worse, complicit in a discredited school of thought. Within American historical practice, some of these dynamics are evident, for example, in the tension between social and old-school political historians. A brief illustration: I recently attended a conference on the American Revolution held at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. A magnificent gathering it was, featuring Pulitzer Prize winners, learned and lively exchanges, and a striking number of young scholars. In two and a half days of discussion, I do not recall the name of George Washington being mentioned once. Joseph Ellis, one is led to conclude, is right: His Excellency (Washington, not Ellis) just might be the oldest, deadest white male going.
We must not make too much of this, or at least I do not.