The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…sprawled across a plateau overlooking the river, a temporary city of log huts and dirt paths that had become permanent by default. General George Washington had established his headquarters there in April 1782, taking up residence in the stone farmhouse of the Hasbrouck family. It was his longes…
The Nationalist Gambit in PhiladelphiaThe letter from Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, dated February 13, 1783, arrived in Newburgh at a moment when patience had worn to its final threads. Hamilton had written it the same day…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…England, he had served in the British Army before casting his lot with the American cause. His victory at Saratoga had made him a rival to George Washington, and the so-called Conway Cabal—a shadowy attempt by some officers and politicians to replace Washington with Gates—had left a residue of d…
The Anonymous Addresses…had served with distinction as well, carrying the wounded General Mercer from the field at Princeton and later joining the staff of General Horatio Gates. By 1783, he was Gates’s aide-de-camp, stationed at Newburgh, and privy to his commander’s frustrations and ambitions. Gates himself occupi…
The General’s Unwanted Command…his army, and that his position as the buffer between the soldiers and the government made him uniquely vulnerable. The presence of General Horatio Gates at Newburgh added another layer of complexity to Washington’s position. Gates had a history with Washington—a history that stretched back t…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…the conclusion was something new. The letter called for a meeting. Major John Armstrong Jr. sat at his desk in the headquarters of General Horatio Gates. The paper before him was blank, the quill in his hand still warm from the work of the night before. He was twenty-five years old, an aide-…
The General’s Unwanted Command…hority finally collapse. The nationalists who were engineering the crisis knew that Gates was in camp. They knew that he had connections to John Armstrong Jr., his aide-de-camp, who would write the anonymous addresses. They knew that the conspiracy, if it failed, might leave Washington weakened an…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…ess that seemed to have forgotten the men who had won the war. But the conclusion was something new. The letter called for a meeting. Major John Armstrong Jr. sat at his desk in the headquarters of General Horatio Gates. The paper before him was blank, the quill in his hand still warm from the wor…
Summons to the Temple of Virtue…ing would be, by definition, an act of insubordination. The address did not need to name the destination. The road itself was enough. Major John Armstrong Jr., aide-de-camp to General Horatio Gates, had written both addresses. This was known to few at the time, and Armstrong would not acknowledge…
The Nationalist Gambit in PhiladelphiaThe letter from Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, dated February 13, 1783, arrived in Newburgh at a moment when patience had worn to its final threads. Hamilton had wr…
The Anonymous Addresses…endent of Finance, had suspended pay to the troops in January, pleading insolvency. His correspondents in the army reported growing unrest. Alexander Hamilton, who had served as Washington’s aide before winning election to Congress, wrote to his former commander with advice: the army’s discontent…
The General’s Unwanted Command…was real. Its grievances were just. And its potential for violence was genuine. The nationalists in Philadelphia—Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton—saw that the army’s anger could be directed toward political ends. If the officers threatened Congress, if they marched on Philadelphia, if…
The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…ges during the conflict and, for those who served to the war’s end, half-pay for life. That promise of half-pay had been hard-won. In 1778, Robert Morris had returned to Congress specifically to vote for the measure that would provide pensions to Continental Army officers. The promise was mea…
The Nationalist Gambit in Philadelphia…o weak to resolve the contradiction. Washington saw the same facts. But where he saw a crisis to be managed, they saw a lever to be pulled. Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, had been staring at impossible arithmetic for months. The treasury was empty. Congress lacked the power to…
The Anonymous Addresses…no accident. For weeks, nationalist politicians in Philadelphia had watched the army’s distress with the eye of craftsmen assessing a tool. Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, had suspended pay to the troops in January, pleading insolvency. His correspondents in the army reported gr…
The Anonymous Addresses…gress into granting the impost—the federal taxing power that nationalists had sought for years. Hamilton was not alone in this calculation. Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris’s assistant and a sharp advocate for a stronger national government, had written in similar terms. The army’s desperation wa…
The General’s Unwanted Command…sis. Its suffering was real. Its grievances were just. And its potential for violence was genuine. The nationalists in Philadelphia—Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton—saw that the army’s anger could be directed toward political ends. If the officers threatened Congress, if they marched…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…it would belong to the officers as a body, not to any individual pen. The network of nationalist politicians in Philadelphia—Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton—had been working toward a federal taxing power for months. They had tried to use the army’s distress as leverage in the…
The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…this winter reveal a spectrum of response. Some expressed stoic resignation, a determination to endure as they had endured everything else. Henry Knox, the artillery chief who had become one of Washington’s most trusted lieutenants, wrote to friends about the hardship but counseled patienc…
Summons to the Temple of Virtue…eting prepared to hear a report from the committee they had previously appointed to negotiate with Congress. This committee, led by General Henry Knox and including other senior officers, had been working for months to secure the army’s back pay and the promised half-pay pensions. Washingt…
The Meeting Called…on. The room filled. Colonel Walter Stewart arrived, immaculate as always, his uniform a rebuke to the threadbare coats around him. General Henry Knox entered, his massive frame drawing eyes, his expression unreadable. Brigadier generals and line officers, men who had wintered at Valley Fo…
The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…e withheld. In 1782, after several months without pay, a group of officers organized to send a delegation to lobby Congress, led by Captain Alexander McDougall. The officers had three demands: the army’s pay, their promised pensions, and a just settlement. This delegation was a formal, lawful step,…
The Anonymous Addresses…anguage of petition. The address ended with a call to assembly. The officers were to meet the following day at the public building known as the Temple of Virtue. They were to come prepared to adopt such measures as shall appear best calculated to obtain justice. The phrase was vague enough to permit…
Summons to the Temple of Virtue…day and the hour: Saturday, March 15, at eleven in the morning. It named the location: the “Public Building,” known to every man in camp as the Temple of Virtue. The summons had the quality of an operational order. Someone had decided that grievance alone was insufficient. Grievance needed a vessel,…
The Meeting CalledThe answers would come on March 15. The Temple of Virtue stood ready that morning, a forty-by-seventy-foot wooden hall the army had built with its own hands for sermons and dances, now repurposed…
The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…t had not been paid. In the months following the signing of the preliminary peace treaty in late 1782, the Continental Army sat encamped at Newburgh, New York, waiting for a peace that was already signed and for wages that might never come. After the British loss at the Siege of Yorktown in Octobe…
The Unfunded Promise…nspiracy may have been instigated by members in the Congress of the Confederation, which circulated an anonymous letter in the army camp at Newburgh, New York, on March 10, 1783. The crisis had failed to force Congress into granting a federal taxing power. But the underlying crisis remained: the e…
The Unpaid Army at Newburgh…tyle privilege unbecoming a republic. Some states had resisted contributing to the pension fund. Some congressmen had voted against it. The Continental Congress, before the Articles were approved, had promised soldiers a pension of half pay for life. However Congress had no power to compel the state…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…ded, he could claim credit for supporting it. Armstrong himself would go on to a long political career. He would serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress, as a United States Senator from New York, and as Minister to France. He would become Secretary of War under President James Madison. His l…
Washington’s Spectacles…ge was deliberate. It echoed the rhetoric of 1776, of rights violated and tyrannies resisted. But the target was not George III. It was the Continental Congress. Gates sat at the front, presiding. Since the war began, he had been Washington’s rival. He had commanded at Saratoga while Washington lost…
The Pen of John Armstrong Jr.…my,” laid out the case with rhetorical precision. It began with the familiar grievances: the army had not been paid for years, the promised half-pay pensions remained unpaid, and Congress seemed paralyzed by the requirement of unanimous state consent for any revenue measure. Washington himself ha…
Summons to the Temple of Virtue…, led by General Henry Knox and including other senior officers, had been working for months to secure the army’s back pay and the promised half-pay pensions. Washington’s reference to the committee was a reminder that legitimate channels existed for addressing their grievances. It was also a rem…
The Meeting Called…he army’s situation was genuinely dire. The quartermaster’s ledgers told the story in columns of unpaid figures. Officers had been promised half-pay pensions for seven years, a commitment Congress had made in 1780 to keep them in service. Enlisted men had been promised bounties and back wages. Mo…