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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. VI (1777-1778) [1890]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. VI (1777-1778).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Head-Quarters,Whitemarsh,
23 November, 1777.

Sir,

I have been duly honored with your favors of the 13th and 19th instant, with their enclosures. I am well assured Congress have not been inattentive to the necessities of the army; and that the deficiency in our supplies, particularly in the article of clothing, has arisen from the difficulty of importing, on account of the numerous fleets that line our coast. However, I am persuaded that considerable relief might be drawn from the different States, were they to exert themselves properly. This I hope will be the case, as soon as they receive the pressing recommendations of Congress upon the subject.

It has been the unvaried custom of the enemy, from the commencement of the present contest, to try every artifice and device to delude the people. The message through John Brown was calculated for this end.1 I am surprised Mr. Willing should suffer himself to be imposed on by such flimsy measures. He knows that there is a plain, obvious way for General and Lord Howe to communicate any proposals they wish to make to Congress, without the intervention of a second and third hand. But this would not suit their views. I am sorry that Mr. Brown should have been the bearer of the message; as, from the character I have had of him, he is a worthy, well-disposed man. It has been frequently mentioned, that he had interested himself much in behalf of our prisoners, and had afforded them every relief and comfort his circumstances would allow him to give.

I have been endeavoring to effect an exchange of prisoners, upon principles of justice, and from motives of humanity; but at present I have no prospect of it. Yet General Howe has assured our officers it was his wish, and, if it could not be done, that he should readily agree to their release on parole. The enclosed copies of my letters and his answer will show Congress what has passed between us upon that subject; and, at the same time, that I had remonstrated against the severe and cruel treatment of the prisoners, and proposed the plan of sending in a suitable person to inquire into the facts, before the receipt of their resolution. Their sufferings, I am persuaded, have been great, and shocking to humanity. I have called upon General Howe for redress, and an explicit answer to my letter of the 14th. If I do not receive one by to-morrow night, with the most positive and satisfactory assurances that a proper conduct shall be observed towards them in future, we must retaliate, however much we wish to avoid severity, and measures that bear the smallest appearance of rigor or inhumanity.

Enclosed you will receive a list of sundry officers, who have been cashiered since the action of the 4th ultimo. I flatter myself, that these examples will involve many favorable and beneficial consequences. Besides these, there were many more brought to trial, who were acquitted; among them, General Maxwell and General Wayne, the former for charges against him while he commanded the light troops, the latter for charges against his conduct in the attack made on his division in the night of the 20th of September. The result of the court of inquiry against General Wayne not entirely exempting him from censure in his own opinion, he requested a court-martial; and, upon a full and minute investigation of the charges against him, he was honorably acquitted, and in terms of high respect.

I am sorry to inform Congress, that the enemy are now in possession of all the water defences. Fort Mifflin and that at Red Bank mutually depended on each other for support; and the reduction of the former made the tenure of the latter extremely precarious, if not impracticable. After the loss of Fort Mifflin, it was found Red Bank could derive no advantages from the galleys and armed vessels; (they could not maintain their station;) and, in case of investiture, the garrison could have no supplies, no retreat, nor any hope of relief, but such as might arise from a superior force acting without on the rear of the enemy, and dislodging them. Under these circumstances, the garrison was obliged to evacuate it on the night of the 20th instant, on the approach of Lord Cornwallis, who had crossed the river from Chester with a detachment, supposed to be about two thousand men, and formed a junction with the troops lately arrived from New York, and those that had been landed before at Billingsport.

From General Varnum’s account, I have reason to hope that we saved most of the stores, except a few heavy cannon; however, I cannot be particular in this instance. I am also to add, from the intelligence I have received, that most if not all the armed vessels have been burned by our own people, except the galleys, one brig, and two sloops, which are said to have run by the city. How far this might be founded in necessity, I am not able to determine; but I suppose it was done under that idea, and an apprehension of their falling into the enemy’s hands if they attempted to pass up the river.

Upon the first information I had of Lord Cornwallis’s movement, I detached General Huntington’s brigade to join General Varnum, and, as soon as possible, General Greene with his division; hoping that these, with Glover’s brigade, which was on the march through Jersey, and which I directed to file off to the left for the same purpose, and with such militia as could be collected, would be able to defeat the enemy’s design, and preserve the fort. But they were so rapid in their advances, that our troops could not form a junction and arrive in time to succor the garrison; which obliged them to withdraw. General Greene is still in Jersey; and, when Glover’s brigade joins him, if an attack can be made on Lord Cornwallis with a prospect of success, I am persuaded it will be done. About a hundred and seventy of Morgan’s corps are also gone to reinforce him.1 Generals Poor and Paterson, with their brigades, and Colonel Bailey with Learned’s, are now in camp. The last arrived on Friday evening, the other two in the course of yesterday. I have not yet obtained returns of their strength; but, from the accounts of the officers, they will amount in the whole to twenty-three or twenty-four hundred rank and file. But I find many of them are very deficient in the articles of shoes, stockings, breeches, and blankets. Besides these, about three hundred and fifty men, detachments from Lee’s, Jackson’s, and Henley’s regiments, have joined me. Yesterday evening the enemy burned several houses in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and they have committed the most wanton spoil in many others. I have the honor to be, &c.

[1 ]Brown had come out from Philadelphia “without a flag or pass from any general or officer in the service of the United States, pretending that he is charged with a verbal message to Congress from General Howe.” Deeming such conduct good evidence of his being “employed by the enemy for purposes inimical to these states,” Congress directed his arrest.—Journals of Congress, 18 November, 1777.

[1 ]The remainder of Morgan’s corps was rendered unfit to march by the want of shoes. There was much suffering in the army generally on this account. The following is an extract from the Orderly Book.

“The Commander-in-chief offers a reward of ten dollars to any person, who shall by nine o’clock on Monday morning produce the best substitute for shoes, made of raw hides. The commissary of hides is to furnish the hides, and the major-general of the day is to judge of the essays, and assign the reward to the best artist.”—November 22d.

A council of war was called, on the evening of the 24th of November, to consider the question of making an immediate attack on the enemy in Philadelphia. While Lord Cornwallis was absent in New Jersey with so large a body of troops, it was supposed by some that a fit opportunity presented itself for making a successful attack. General Washington had reconnoitred the enemy’s lines in person with this view. The subject was debated with earnestness, and, as there was a difference of opinion among the members of the council, they separated without coming to any decision. At the request of the Commander-in-chief, each officer sent in his written opinion the next morning, with his reasons. During the night a messenger was likewise despatched to General Greene in Jersey, who communicated his views in writing. The result was, that eleven officers were opposed to the attack, and four in favor of it. Those in the affirmative were Stirling, Wayne, Scott, and Woodford; in the negative, Greene, Sullivan, Knox, Baron de Kalb, Smallwood, Maxwell, Poor, Paterson, Irvine, Duportail, and Armstrong.

The plan suggested for the attack is thus described by Lord Stirling: “1. That the enemy’s lines on the north side of Philadelphia should be attacked at daylight by three columns properly flanked and supported. 2, That two thousand men should be drawn from General Greene and embarked in boats at Dunks’s Ferry, proceed to Philadelphia, land at or near Spruce Street, push through the Common, and endeavor with a part to secure the bridge over the Schuylkill, and with the remainder to attack the enemy in the rear of their lines. 3. That five hundred of the Continental troops, with the militia under General Potter, should possess such of the hills on the other side of the Schuylkill as command and enfilade the enemy’s lines; and while part of them carry on a brisk cannonade at that place, the rest proceed to the bridge over the Schuylkill, and wait an opportunity of attacking the works there in front, when the party from Spruce Street make an attack in the rear.”

Such was the outline of the plan of attack, but it was by no means satisfactory to the majority of the officers. The enemy’s lines on the north side of the city, from river to river, were sustained by a chain of fourteen redoubts, strengthened by abatis in some parts and by circular works in others. Each of the enemy’s flanks was moreover protected by a river, and the rear by the union of two rivers. To attack an army under such circumstances, without the greatest hazard of a failure, would require a large superiority of force, and the best disciplined troops; but in the present case, the enemy’s force was almost equal in numbers to that under Washington, and in point of discipline and experience far superior. These considerations, with others of a similar tendency, were deemed sufficient to discourage an attack.

“Our Commander in chief wishing ardently to gratify the public expectation by making an attack upon the enemy—yet preferring at the same time a loss of popularity to engaging in an enterprise which he could not justify to his own conscience and the more respectable part of his constituents, went yesterday to view the works. A clear sunshine favored our observations: we saw redoubts of a very respectable profit, faced with plank, formidably fraised, and the intervals between them closed with an abbatis unusually strong. General du Portail declared that in such works with five thousand men he would bid defiance to any force that should be brought against him. . . . Every man of experience and judgment thinks it would be madness with our force to make an attempt on the enemy in their present situation.”—John Laurens to his father, 26 November, 1777.