Stunning detail, long lists, piles of reports on his camp desk, he reading and trying to remember. Soon he began writing summaries, just extended lists at first, but the very process of writing produced such order, logic, and coherence that lists turned into essays. His pen scratched steadily down sheet after sheet of foolscap as the candle guttered on his desk and his camp bed remained smooth and untouched. Step by step the mass of information became a solid whole, and then, simply and clearly, decision took care of itself.
Was today so different? He felt the same confusion and clashes, same omnipresent sense of danger, the old calls to leadership renewed. How to respond? Surely as he had before—think it through, write it out—or, at least, think it out. Suddenly he was more content than he’d been in weeks: yes, review all that had happened till he knew the answers.
Martha leaned on the back of his chair. She put her hands on his throat. They were warm and he sighed. “You’re not well, are you?” It was a statement and he didn’t deny it.
“A cold,” he said. “I’ll shake it off.”
“I
knew
you took a chill. I’ll mix the medicine.”
“No—you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go as it came, without help.”
“But, George, you’re not as—”
“I know.” He raised a hand. “Ask Cullie for more tea.” There was a limit to just how much he would cosset himself. He was busy now … go back to the start, when things were simple. They had fought for eight fierce years; eyes shut, he let images of war roll in his mind. He had never seriously doubted they would win, and finally the British saw the reality and went home.
Ah, that November day in eighty-three! He’d grouped his troops just above New York City while the last British soldiers boarded ships off the Battery. Then, his big warhorse, Nelson, prancing under him—Old Nelson felt as proud as he did—he led the boys in. People lined the streets in awestruck silence and then burst into a stunning roar. Hats
flew in the air, women rushed forward with hothouse flowers in thick bunches, Henry Knox’s cannon on the heights opened in wild salute …
Flowery welcome speeches said no one but General Washington could have held it all together and made independence work. That was fair enough. He had a clear sense of himself: solid, strong, able, self-contained, intelligent—but, mind you, not brilliant, not even clever, never scheming, not the most rapid man in thought, not intellectual, not a wide reader, his real interests agricultural, all qualities that meant he understood his men and they understood him.
He knew himself very well. Slow to decide but unshakeable when he did; profound judgment proved over the years. He’d held them together, the boys suffering through winter after winter, gathering themselves for another awful forced march to another slashing attack and quick retreat—the men of the Revolution, great men, gallant, loyal, dangerous men with the taste of independence in their mouths.
Marched into New York to the boom of cannon and at four that very afternoon he summoned his senior officers to Fraunce’s Tavern not far from the Battery. Looking at their familiar faces, lined now where once they had been smooth and young, he felt the tears start. Grew worse as he took each in hard embrace, whispering thanks and farewell and Godspeed. An hour later he was crossing the Hudson, heading south. It was over.
King George III, who had his odd moments but was nobody’s fool, was reputed to have said that if General Washington gave up power now the American would be the great man of the eighteenth century. Well, he could have justified hanging on. Many men so urged, brimming with reasons, the country staggering out of the disciplinary grip of war, a weak and quarreling Congress, states that viewed themselves as separate powers, European nations looking upon us as a hawk looks on goslings. Men tried to push duty on him, told him he
owed
them a ruling hand. He remembered being infuriated one day, close to knocking the man down … . now he couldn’t remember who it was … .
But it was clear he could have been king, and he thought about it. Power is sweet; he knew that who doubts that hasn’t tasted it or is a liar. But he gave it up and went south in a great rattling coach with four horses that Simon Simcoe of Camden had loaned him, cheering crowds and cannon salutes and children with hothouse flowers all the way. The darling of the people. Tendered his commission to Congress with a graceful speech, tears standing in his eyes. Then he was free … . Mount Vernon and Martha awaited.
Even now, he remembered his contentment. He had been true to himself. He was a man of probity, above the slashing swords of ambition and desire and hence all sides could turn to him.
Meanwhile, he must mark those trees. He summoned Billy with the axe, wrapped a scarf around his neck in deference to a throat that now was worse than sore, and walked out, boots growing damp in three inches of snow.
“General,” Billy said, “you look like something the cat drug in. You better stay inside.”
“I’ll manage,” he said. He was very tired. Suddenly it seemed quite intolerable that people should call on him again—just too much!
Billy was holding the axe close to the head. “Show me which trees. I’ll blaze ’em.”
“
I’ll
do it!”
“Suh—”
“Damn you, Billy, shut your mouth!” He was in a fury, hands shaking. He snatched the axe. Billy stared at him, dismayed but not cowed. It struck Washington that he must be sicker than he thought … .
“All right,” he said at last. He touched Billy on the shoulder. “Maybe I’m not so well after all.” It wasn’t quite an apology. He passed over the axe. “You do the rest.”
The pain in his chest expanded. He began to shiver, overtaken by a chill despite his coat. They walked back to the house in silence. He was searching for something to say to Billy when the big man said, “You’ll feel better tomorrow,
General. You don’t mind my saying it, you’ll find a dollop of corn would go good right now.”
The general smiled. “I believe you’re right, Billy.”
Inside, he asked Cullie to lace his tea with whiskey. He pulled off his boots and put slippered feet toward the fire before Martha could admonish him. His pipe had a foul taste, not a good sign. He was surprisingly tired, and he put his head back in the big blue chair, eyes shut, remembering … .
Home from war he’d seen immediately that a tottering confederation under a toothless Congress with no chief of state must fail. He remembered his surprise that it came as a surprise. There was just no focusing authority to hold states together. So he’d put into motion the steps upon steps that led to forming a new government.
There was a heat wave in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. Dancing on burning cobblestones and shedding coats in the stifling chamber reminded them of their common humanity, he felt, inducing humility. They met in the State House, in the same room where years before he had accepted command, and seated themselves at the same little tables covered in green baize. He took his place on a small dais between two dormant fireplaces faced with marble. He scarcely spoke; he was a commander, not an orator.
And he watched them unfold a miracle.
He jerked awake. Martha was standing over him, her hand on his forehead. She gave him a cup of thick pea soup that slid down his aching throat and said he must go to bed. In the bedroom she helped him disrobe. He made her face the wall when he pulled on his nightshirt—modesty holds to the end—and then sank into the feathers, exhausted. He let her spoon the potion of emetic, James powder and Peruvian bark, into his mouth.
“George,” she said, “I forbid you to be ill.” She sat on the edge of the bed and wiped his face. He brought her hand to his lips. She was stout now with jowls and double chin that accentuated her pointed nose, and her beauty of long ago had not faded but changed, gone inside, evident as ever
through her eyes. She’d been a widow when he’d married her and well-to-do, not a small matter, and perhaps for both of them it had been as much arrangement as passion. He had known passions; now he wanted solidity, a woman who could manage a home and complete a life. And over fortyone years respect had deepened into profound love, and he was never quite so content as when she was near.
He lay there, drifting and dreaming and wondering, back in Philadelphia again listening to them build a new nation. They would have a president, and soon he saw they expected him to take the post and give it shape. Good enough. Sliding toward sleep, his breathing very shallow, ignoring the fire in his throat, he saw that
this
was why finding the way was so important. In Philadelphia they had created a form in which free men could live in peace, granting the rights of others while retaining their own. It was a noble document and it should live forever.
Indeed, it was proving itself out at just this moment of George Cabot’s terror, when Alexander Hamilton was doing his best to crush the Democrats. Jimmy Madison had overcome the great pitfall of democracy, how to have majority rule while still preserving the rights of the minority. He’d crafted an intricate balance of powers between the three branches: Freedom within limits—divided legislature with staggered terms, each branch forced to yield to the others, two-thirds to impeach, three-fifths to limit debate … .
The general supposed Jimmy felt fully estranged from him now. Madison had left the Congress and was rusticating at his estate in Virginia, a great waste. Suddenly wistful, he thought how good it would be to see Jimmy again, see him walk in and flash that shy smile and hear his soft voice laying out logic in that building-block way of his.
And the general would say, my boy, you saved yourself and your people with that wonderful document. For as things had worked out, now Jimmy’s own Democrats had become an angry minority that couldn’t be silenced no matter how the Federalists tried. Good … as much as the general admired Hamilton he didn’t like to think of a man with
Alex’s instincts ruling without limits. Wouldn’t be much different from that young devil Napoleon, now shattering the old orders in Europe, probably forevermore. Not that shattering the old orders was bad—open ’em up and let in air and light. But we needed no Napoleons in America.
Lying quietly on his side, swallowing only when he must, he searched those early days for hints of the trouble that was to come. Well, getting started had been the easy part. He’d been elected in an atmosphere of good humor. Hamilton as secretary of the treasury and Jefferson as secretary of state would be the key cabinet figures. Jimmy Madison was a congressman from Virginia and became the general’s leading advisor.
Alike in their powerful minds, Jimmy and Alex were startlingly different in every other way: Hamilton handsome, vivid, swift of thought, clever to a fault, dashing with women; Madison modest, retiring, thoughtful, stimulating in quiet conversation, but downright dull in social situations. You never saw him with a woman in those days. But when he did stir himself to look at a woman, lo and behold, he chose the gorgeous Widow Todd, her husband swept away in the great yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.
Miss Dolley was as charming as she was beautiful, and when she began appearing on Jimmy Madison’s arm the whole town took note and some of the racier lads made book on whether he would have the nerve to follow through. The general loved to dance with Miss Dolley—he danced with all the women, of course, a champion of the minuet, but she was special. Martha turned matchmaker: Had Jimmy spoken? She said Dolley looked ready to cry as she shook her head. Martha marched to Jimmy: This young woman was a prize and he’d better be sensible. The general was dubious about interfering in matters of the heart, but Martha pished him to silence and she proved right, for the wedding followed and they seemed supremely happy. That was in the easy days, dancing with Dolley before things turned harsh.
He was less familiar with Jefferson, who was just back from six years as ambassador to France under the old govemment.
They’d gotten off to a poor start when Jefferson had delayed accepting the appointment. Took a couple of months to get a yes out of him, and the general heard that Jimmy had had to make a hard case to persuade him. Jefferson had wanted to sit on that mountaintop he called Monticello—a pretentious name, really, not that that was any of the general’s business—but it was his business that a man would hesitate when asked to serve at a crucial time. It embarrassed Jimmy; he and Jefferson were the closest of friends.
John Adams was vice president. Fussy, good-hearted, honest, more proud of himself than any man needed to be, John was always ready to talk himself into trouble. He proposed the most god-awful kingly forms you could imagine with a thirteen-word title for the president, his most exalted etc. etc. The general never did get it really straight, but he cut right through the uproar—his title would be president of the United States and the direct address would be Mr. President and that was that! It had held so far; he hoped it would hold forever. A good start for a democracy … but then, thinking about it, he saw that the incident had foretold the divisions of the future.
He snapped awake and knew instantly that he was much worse. His throat was aflame, his breathing labored. All at once breath stopped! Plugged! As if a hand clutched his throat. Strangling, he raised himself with a hoarse cry. Martha sat up, sleeping cap askew, horror in her eyes. He stretched an imploring hand toward her and then miraculously his passages opened and he took a rasping breath.