By: Mary Mostert, Editor, Michael Reagan's MONTHLY MONITOR
February 19, 1996
As the lively debate among Republicans debating one another in for voter approval comes to a close in New Hampshire, many dooms-sayers fear the Republican party is coming apart. Discussion rages about "negative publicity," voter disinterest and campaign reform.
Many seem to think this is a new and dangerous trend in American politics. It isn't. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington had nearly as much trouble with people under his command , with Congress and with apathetic Americans as he did with the British army.
Take, for example, the aristocratic ambitions of several foreign officers who were sent supposedly to help the Americans. They had the unfortunate habit of attempting to go around their leader, George Washington, to Congress seeking appointments and honors. When Baron De Kalb, "a silver-haired veteran, sixty years of age, yet fresh and active and vigorous: which some attributed to his being a rigid water drinker" was given the commission of major-general, Brigadier-general Conway, of France, felt slighted.
So, he contacted certain members of the Continental Congress and demanded that HE be given the rank of major-general also. Washington, surprised to hear from other sources that the Congress might give Conway the rank of Major-General, wrote a letter to Richard Henry Lee, then in the Congress, to warn him that it would be a "fatal blow to the Army."
"I must speak plainly," Washington wrote. The duty I owe my country, the ardent desire I have to promote its true interests, and justice to individuals require this of me. General Conway's merit as an officer and his importance in this army, exist more in his own imagination than in reality." Washington warned that other brigadier generals, all of whom had reached their rank prior to Conway "will not serve under him. I leave you to guess, therefore, at the situation this army would be in at so important a crisis, if this event should take place."
In retaliation, Conway organized the "Conway Cabal," a faction to plot the downfall of George Washington. They started a negative campaign, claiming that Washington was not a good general. They concocted a plot to undermine Washington by spreading a story giving General Horatio Gates all the credit for defeating the British in the Northern colonies. Gates, flattered by the story, did not send a dispatch to Washington. He sent his dispatch to Congress, and then just sat and waited at Yorktown.
Washington, who finally heard the news by rumor, needed Gates' reinforcements to open up the Delaware river, which was blocked by the British under Sir William Howe. Instead of making himself, and his men, available to Washington, Gates stayed in New York and left the much smaller force under Washington exposed to attack by Howe's army.
In the meantime, a letter sent from Conway to Gen. Gates fell into Washington's hands. Conway said that Washington was a "weak general" with "bad counselors." Washington sent a letter to Conway saying, "Sir: A letter which I received last night contained the following paragraph." Making no other comment, Washington quoted the letter.
It was "a hand-grenade thrown into the midst of the Conway cabal."one historian put it. Conway resigned his commission. However, he was supported by members of the group and, not only did Congress fail to censure Conway, it advanced him with honors!
While Washington never replied publicly, he did send a letter to his friend, Patrick Henry, who was then governor of Virginia, in which he poured out his frustrations. The Northern troops, under Gates, had been amply supplied and reinforced by volunteers anxious to get the British troops out of their state. Then, Gates simply stopped. Washington was left with a much smaller army trying to defend Pennsylvania.
Pennsylavania had been lax in sending enough men. "I assure you , sir," Washington wrote to Thomas Wharton, president of Pennsylvania, "it is a matter of astonishment to every part of the continent to hear that Pennsylvania, the most opulent and populous of all the States, have but twelve hundred militia in the field, at a time when the enemy are endeavoring to make themselves completely masters of, and fix their quarters in, her capital."
Major General Armstrong, commanding the Pennsylvania militia also wrote to Wharton, to try to get more support for Washington and the Army and invited the City Fathers to pay General Washington a visit on the battlefield." There you will see for yourselves the unremitting zeal and toils of all the day and half the night, multiplied into years, without seeing house or home of his own, without murmur or complaint; (General Washington) believes and calls this arduous task the service of his country and of his God."
Knowing the weakness of men, and the importance of the goal, Washington wrote only that his "difficulties, in the course of the campaign, have been .increased" by the reluctance of Gates to come to his aid. "But, it is to be hoped," he concluded, "that all will yet end well. If the cause is advanced, indifferent it is to me where or in which quarter it happens."
George Washington understood that the cause was far more important than who got the credit, or who was given honors. He was not looking at the polls daily, to determine his actions. There was a great cause to defend - and he defended it, when many others not only would not, but even tried to undermine him.
In this election year, it might be a good idea to think about which Republican Candidate has the qualities of leadership, determination and character that George Washington possessed. It was George Washington's calm and dignified and unruffled approach to problems, not great campaign speeches, that enabled him to bring together, in one nation, the bickering 13 colonies. The first president of the twenty-first century will need qualities of character and leadership similar to those of our first president. We must not settle for a candidate who like General Conway, offers only self-serving manipulation of people, a persuasive and lying tongue and make-believe claims of accomplishment.
We've been there, and done that already.