Henry Knox (32 page)

To Secretary at War Lincoln, he penned on December 20, 1782: "The expectations of the army, from the drummer to the highest officers are so keen for some pay, that I shudder at the idea of their not receiving it.“
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The concern that ran through the ranks was that once the threat of the war had passed, the soldiers would be completely forgotten and their promised
wages and benefits would not be paid. The British evacuated Charleston in December, raising hopes that the fighting was all but over but also reducing the need for the army, and therefore lessening the urgency to pay the soldiers.

The issue of how to compensate the soldiers was hopelessly complicated. Congress had made the promise of half pay for life to many of the soldiers before the Articles of Confederation were approved. Under the Articles, Congress had no constitutional power to fulfill its promises because it had no authority to levy taxes and could only "recommend" to the states that money be raised to compensate the troops. The Articles also required that nine of the thirteen states agree on any proposal.

Knox realized that getting nine of the thirteen states to agree on a pension was unlikely, especially since leaders and residents in nearly every state believed they had already contributed more than their fair share to the war effort. Added to these complications, the prospect of peace led to poor attendance in Congress. Georgia declined to send any delegates to Philadelphia, and many delegates did not show up for sessions.

While his home-state Massachusetts legislature debated whether to grant its soldiers half pay for life, Congressman Samuel Osgood complained to Knox in a December letter that the costs would be "excessive" because the plan rewarded soldiers who served a short stint equally with those who served for the entire war. Osgood objected that Massachusetts would create problems in poorer states by agreeing on half pay for life, and therefore he could not support it.
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Knox felt that with the fighting over, it was a little late for delegates and state leaders to find reasons not to fulfill promises made to soldiers. His high standing in the army and his popularity among the troops made him a point man on the issue. He received a constant stream of letters from Philadelphia keeping him abreast of congressional deliberations over the matter from delegates as well as correspondences from fellow officers such as Baron von Steuben and well-connected friends such as Gouverneur Morris in the finance department.

Several Continental officers came together in December to plan a strategy to plead with Congress to address the army's pay grievances. Knox was chosen as chairman of the committee and drafted a petition offering a solution. As the promise of receiving their due pension of half pay for life appeared more and more unattainable, he offered Lincoln's compromise of a lump-sum pension payment. He also stated that the men's back pay, which he
calculated to be between $5 million and $6 million, should be paid immediately to prevent unrest or mutiny.

Major General Alexander McDougal, Colonel Matthias Ogden, and Lieutenant Colonel John Brooks were deputed to travel to Philadelphia and present the Knox-authored memorial to Congress.

The men arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday, December 29. James Madison, a thirty-one-year-old Virginia delegate, commented in a letter that the feeling around Congress was that the proposals offered in Knox's memorial "breathe a proper spirit and are full of good sense.“
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McDougal, Ogden, and Brooks had nearly depleted their funds for the trip waiting to meet with a congressional committee. McDougal, suffering from painful bouts of rheumatism, was initially too ill to attend sessions, and asked if committee members could meet at his lodging at the Indian Queen Tavern to discuss the collective grievances of thousands of soldiers. But delegates balked that this would be beneath "the respect due to themselves, especially as the mission from the army was not within the ordinary course of duty," Madison recorded in his notes of the debate.
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McDougal, Ogden, and Brooks addressed Congress on Monday, January 30, detailing the suffering of the soldiers and their need for some kind of immediate payment while offering to compromise on the pension. They expressed the deep bitterness and anger among the soldiers that Congress had found ways to pay civilian salaries but had failed to come up with funds for men who risked their lives on the battlefield. Madison recorded in his notes: "General McDougal said that the army [was] verging to that state which we are told will make a wise man mad," and "They mentioned in particular that the members of the legislatures would never agree to an adjournment with[out] paying themselves fully for their services.“
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Horatio Gates, meanwhile, had returned to the army after his disgrace at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina. His aides began to circulate rumors in Philadelphia that the army was ripe for revolt and would not lay down their arms and return to civilian life until being fully compensated for their service. Alexander Hamilton, who had been elected to Congress the previous July, was uncertain how much weight to ascribe to the whispers. It was said that many soldiers in the army grumbled that Washington was too delicate in dealing with civilian leaders to adequately pressure or threaten politicians on behalf of the men. Hamilton reestablished his relationship with Washington, writing him on Thursday, February 13, 1783, that he should use his influence with elected officials. Hamilton also advised Washington to confide in discreet officers within
the army to manage the building torrent of anger within the ranks in order to avoid the risk of appearing to interfere with civil authority. Hamilton suggested: "General Knox has the confidence of the army & is a man of sense. I think he may be safely made use of.“
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As weeks dragged on, Congress failed to act decisively on the pay issue. Knox was crestfallen when he received news from McDougal that Congress was content to leave the soldiers' compensation in doubt. He replied on Friday, February 21, from his headquarters at West Point, pouring out his exasperation and writing for the eyes of congressmen: "The complex system of government operates most powerfully in the present instance against the army; who certainly deserve every thing in the power of a grateful people to give. We are in an unhappy predicament indeed, not to know who are responsible to us for a settlement of accounts."

Knox pointed out that the soldiers had placed their faith in the integrity of national and state legislatures in enlisting and fighting. "Posterity will hardly believe that an army contended incessantly for eight years under a constant pressure of misery to establish the liberties of their country without knowing who were to compensate them or whether they were ever to receive any reward for their services."

In the same letter, Knox gently warned political leaders: "My sentiments are exactly these. I consider the reputation of the American army as one of the most immaculate things on earth, and that we should even suffer wrongs and injuries to the utmost verge of toleration rather than sully it in the least degree. But there is a point beyond which there is no sufferance. I pray we will sincerely not pass it.“
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In the political morass surrounding the issue, Knox pinpointed the source of the complications: America's framework of government under the Articles of Confederation. As early as the opening months of 1783, he began writing to influential leaders with the extraordinary suggestion that a constitutional convention be called together to replace the existing form of government with a compact that created a stronger union and gave the national legislature the authority to tax.

On the divide between supporters of a strong union and supporters of strong states, Knox clearly fell on the side supporting a vigorous national government. As a member of the Continental army, Knox's allegiance to Massachusetts had yielded to his love of country, which for him was "the United States of America." Many American political leaders—including Virginia's Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee and Massachusetts'
John Hancock and Samuel Adams—viewed the states as more important than the national government, which was seen as little more than a skeletal framework that loosely held the alliance of states together. Many state leaders feared a strong national government as much as they had detested British oversight. The national army only brought fears of a growing national government and bureaucracy.

Knox was convinced that the army was the victim of provincial thinking. As a member of a Continental army, he had mixed with soldiers from all regions of the country. Within the ranks of American army, state allegiances blurred and disappeared as soldiers forged close, lasting relationships with men who hailed from towns throughout America. The troops looked to Congress as their government and "the United States" as a single country rather than a wartime alliance of thirteen individual provinces.

Knox was closer to the Virginian Washington and Rhode Island's Nathanael Greene than he was to any of the political leaders from Massachusetts. Henry explained his perspective within the army in a letter to Gouverneur Morris, written the same day that he had written McDougal with his frustrations: "The army generally have always reprobated the idea of being thirteen armies. Their ardent desires have been to be one continental body looking up to one sovereign. . . . It is a favorite toast in the army, 'A hoop to the barrel' or 'Cement to the Union.'"

Knox believed that Congress needed to be empowered with the authority to levy taxes to raise general funds for the army. The absence of taxing authority in the national government had plagued the army during the war.

In his letter to Morris, Knox then made a remarkably prescient recommendation: "As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution?“
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He made this recommendation four years before the U.S. Constitutional Convention would be held in Philadelphia. And Gouverneur Morris, to whom he made this suggestion, would one day draft much of the language for the U.S. Constitution.

Knox observed that the slight regard with which the states viewed Congress was a telltale sign of the poor design of the Articles of Confederation and was manifestly demonstrated by the delegates' poor attendance. To McDougal, he wrote on Monday, March 3: "It is enough to sicken one to observe how light a matter many states make of their not being represented in Congress—a good proof of the badness of the present constitution.“
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In Philadelphia, wild rumors of unrest within the army continued to circulate, including the claim that soldiers had vowed not to disband and return to civilian life until all their claims had been settled. Delegates began to fear that the army might seize control of the government and launch a counterrevolution. Both the army and the Congress seemed suspicious of the other. In a letter written to Washington on Thursday, February 27, Virginia congressman Joseph Jones openly wondered if the country was bordering on a civil war: "When once all confidence between the civil and military authority is lost, by intemperate conduct or an assumption of improper power, especially by the military body, the Rubicon is passed and to retreat will be very difficult.“
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While Knox vociferously stated the soldiers' case for compensation, he was careful not to inflame an already volatile situation. Knox's letters to friends in Philadelphia painted a more moderate view of the army's discontent, as James Madison noted in a letter to Edmund Randolph on Tuesday, March 4, 1783: "A letter from General Knox is in town which I understand places the temper and affairs of the army in a less alarming view than some preceding accounts.“
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At Washington's main camp at Newburgh, New York, about ten miles from West Point, agitators played on the anger of the men and stoked feelings of resentment toward Congress. On Monday, March 10, an artfully written anonymous letter was circulated among the officers. Referred to as the Newburgh Address, it sharply criticized Congress for failing to live up to its promises and recommended that Congress's authority be disregarded and that the soldiers take the law into their own hands if not given what had been promised. The letter also advised soldiers to refuse to fight any longer for the country but to leave the populace defenseless and open to foreign attack, telling the men to "retire to some yet unsettled country, smile in your turn and mock when their fear cometh on.“
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The address called for the soldiers to gather for a meeting the next day to take up their cause.

It was not commonly known at the time, but the address was written by Major John Anderson, an aide of Horatio Gates.

Washington and Knox moved quickly to, at the very least, redirect the movement. They believed that General Gates had been behind the rumors buffeting Philadelphia as well as the Newburg Address. Washington issued general orders on Tuesday expressing his disapproval of the irregular meeting proposed in the address, yet acknowledging that the men had reason for complaint. He recommended that the soldiers instead wait four days, until a
Saturday meeting, to decide a course of action and allow passions to subside. Washington tied Gates's hands by appointing him to chair the meeting. The commander in chief also realized that the trust and respect that the men had for Knox could help defuse the situation. In preparing for the meeting, Knox wrote up a series of moderate resolutions that he hoped would preserve the honor of the army, and he sent off letters to influential leaders pleading for help.

He wrote a letter the following day to McDougal in Philadelphia, imploring delegates to act: "Endeavor, my dear friend, once more to convince the obdurate of the awful evils which may arise from postponing a decision on the subjects of our address."

He prayed that the situation would not end in the disgrace of the army and believed that those who played on the injured pride and desperation of the soldiers acted criminally: "I sincerely hope we shall not be influenced to actions which may be contrary to our uniform course of services for eight years. The men who, by their illiberality and injustice drive the army to the very brink of destruction, ought to be punished with severity.“
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