more appalling. He had been offered the kingship and refused: the army must now look to itself for protection. He would not go with them: then they must go on without him. The army with its pay withheld, Congress deaf to its petitions and indifferent to its wants, and yet its dissolution near, when it would be powerless to act, grew wrathful and mutinous. Washington heard the deep mutterings of the gathering storm around him. The following strong language, in a letter to the Secretary of War, shows how imminent was the peril and how deeply he was moved. Said he "Under present circumstances, when I see a number of men goaded by a thousand stings of reflections on the past and anticipations of the future about to be turned on the world, forced by penury and by what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved in debt, without one farthing to carry them home, after spending the flower of their days, and many of them their patrimonies, in establishing the freedom of their country, and suffering everything this side death-I repeat it Twice during the war, Washington, while on a visit to that wing of the army operating in the Highlands, made the old Ellison house in New Windsor his head-quarters for a short time. But the mansion has long since disappeared, and the old homestead been converted into a brick-yard. when I consider these irritating circumstances, without one thing to soothe their feelings or dispel their prospects, I can not avoid apprehending that a train of evils will follow of a very serious and distressing nature.... You may rely upon it the patriotism and long-suffering of this army is well-nigh exhausted, and there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at present." What a terrible state of things must have existed that could wring such strong language from the prudent, self-contained Washington, and what an extraordinary position did this man occupy! When his faithful army, in view of their suffering condition and the helplessness or indifference of the government, asked him to become king and take charge of them and the country, he turned on them with a fierceness that was appalling, as if they were traitors to freedom. The next moment he turned on that government with equal sternness for its cruel treatment of that army of long-suffering, noble patriots. He stood alone between a starving mutinous army on the one side and an inefficient blind Congress on the other, assailing and defending both by turns, and with a lofty patriotism and far-seeing wisdom, acting only for his country. But his appeals to both were of no avail, and as winter with its increasing suffering came on, the low rumbling of the coming earthquake grew louder, and fearful of a convulsion that would bury everything in indiscriminate ruin, he got the officers to assemble and appoint a committee to visit Congress and lay before it their grievances and ask for redress. But Congress, though full of conditional promises, refused to do anything till the separate States were consulted, which meant, of course, till peace was secured and the army disbanded and powerless. and was well adapted to arouse and kindle into conflagration the smouldering fires in the army. This was plainly the purpose of the writer. He began by stating how ineffectual had been their appeal to Congress, and declared that the government had shown itself totally indifferent to their rights, and it was folly to trust longer to its sense of justice, saying, "Faith has its limits as well as its temper, and there are points beyond which neither can be stretched without sinking into cowardice or plunging into credulity." He then took a rapid survey of the past, spoke of their devotion to their country, their unparalleled sufferings and hardships endured without a murmur, and then in a series of scornful questions asked them how they had been rewarded. After arousing their indignation with this recital of their wrongs, and the contemptuous treatment with which their humble petitions had been received, he burst forth: When this committee returned and reported its ill success, the murmuring grew louder and deeper, and Washington saw an abyss opening before him whose depths he could not fathom. What shape the dark shadow of coming evil would take he did not know; he only knew it was near at hand. At last it took definite form. One day a paper was handed him that had been freely circulated through the army, calling on the officers to assemble the next day at the "Temple" to decide on the measures the army should "If this be your treatment while the take in the present disastrous condition swords you wear are necessary to the proof things. This paper bore no signature, tection of your country, what have you but was evidently written by an able hand, to expect from peace when your voice shall sink and your strength dissipate by division, when those very swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of your military distinction left you but your infirmities and scars? Can you consent to retire from the field and grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can, go and carry with you the jest of Tories, the scorn of Whigs, and, what is worse, the pity of the world. Go, starve and be forgotten." Growing bold in his indignation, he swooped down on Washington himself, and exclaims, Suspect the man who would advise to more moderation and longer forbear ance." "If you revolt at this," he added, "and would oppose tyranny under whatever garb it may assume, awake, attend to your situation, and redeem yourselves. If the present moment be lost, every future effort will be in vain, and your threats will be empty as your entreaties are now." He closed this stirring appeal with this direful proposition: "Tell Congress that with them rests the responsibility of the future; that if peace returns, nothing but death shall separate you from your arms; if the war continues, you will retire to some unsettled country to smile in turn, and 'mock when their fear cometh.'" These fiery words fell on the excited feelings of the army like fire on gunpowder. A frightful gulf had opened at the very feet of Washington, and he gazed with a beating heart and like one stunned into its gloomy depths. These brave men whom he had borne on his great heart these seven long years were asked to throw him overboard at last! Must it be, then, that the stormy and bloody road they had travelled together so long was to end in this awful abyss in which home and country and honor were to go down in one black ruin? As he looked on the appalling prospect his heart sank within him, and he afterward said it was "the darkest day of his life." Not in the gloomy encampment of Valley Forge, when he gazed on his half-naked, starving army dying around him, did the future look so hopeless. No lost battle-field ever bore so terrible an aspect. But what was to be done? The meeting had been called for the next day, so that there would be no time for passion to subside or cooler counsels to prevail. Should he forbid the meeting, as he had the power to do? No; the army was in no temper to submit to dictation. Besides, if he did, the evil would not be remedied. He must have something more than obedience; he must win back the love and confidence of the army, or all would be lost. He well knew that when that army once broke away from him in anger and defiance, nothing but the blackness of desolation awaited his country. With that before which Washington was slowly pacing when the generals, one after another, rode up and dismounted at the door. Wayne, Putnam, and Sullivan entered one after another, Steuben rode up from over the river, and Knox and Greene from New Windsor, and others, until they formed a noble group around their great chieftain. Of that deliberation no record has come down to us, but if the walls of the old room could speak, they would utter words of noble devotion and patriotism that would stir the heart like a trumpet call. It was determined that Washing mountain-tops and in the deep hollows as Washington and his staff turned away from these head-quarters and began slowly to climb the hill back of Newburgh toward the "Temple," a frame building that stood in an open clearing. It was a large structure which had been erected as a place of worship for the army. As he approached it, absorbed in painful, anxious thought, he saw the open space around it filled with horses in military trappings held by orderlies or hitched to the trees, showing that the officers had already assembled. an opposite ridge across a morass, peeping On |