Robert Morris
Books
- The Officers at Newburgh George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Crisis That Forged the American Republic · Liszt Think
In March 1783, peace had been signed but the Continental Army remained unpaid and restless at Newburgh. Two anonymous addresses circulated through camp, urging officers to defy Congress and march on Philadelphia.
- 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…