Washington the Leader (repost)

Today is the anniversary of George Washington's birth. Here are some of my favorite book about Washington. Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press, 2004) is a splendid account of the Revolutionary Army’s crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 and its subsequent victories at Trenton and Princeton. Dr. Fischer focuses on the character of the leaders of the three major armies – American, British, and Hessian. 

Although my comments are primarily about Washington, I was impressed by the author’s appreciation for the organizational skills of the latter two armies. The ability of the British army to maintain high morale and, for the times, advanced sanitation standards reveals a commendable concern for the common solider. Its ability to integrate into its own military structure units from recent enemies (like the Scottish Highland Regiments) was an impressive achievement.

Still, no one emerges in this study more impressive than George Washington, who managed not only to keep his army intact after a series of defeats and the loss of 90% of its strength, but to put his diminished fighting force on the offensive. How Washington held together a diverse army, comprised of New Englanders and Southerners and those in between, is a remarkable story of leadership, perhaps unsurpassed in American history.

As well organized and disciplined as the British and Hessians were, none of their leaders were able to adapt as Washington did to the changing demands of warfare across the vast geographical and political landscape of the American colonies. In a new nation where men prized their freedom, Washington understood, “A people unused to restraint must be led; they will not be drove” (6).

Very early in life Washington learned the value of physical and moral courage, acquiring them both, and coming to an acute awareness of the physical demands of leadership. Dr. Fischer writes: “The only fear that George Washington ever acknowledged in his life was a fear that his actions would ‘reflect eternal dishonour upon me.’

“A major part of this code was an ideal of courage. The men around young George Washington assumed that a gentleman would act with physical courage in the face of danger, pain, suffering, and death. They gave equal weight to moral courage in adversity, prosperity, trial, and temptation. For them, a vital part of leadership was the ability to persist in what one believed to be the right way. This form of courage was an idea of moral stamina, which Washington held all his life. Stamina in turn was about strength and endurance as both a moral and a physical idea. “. . . In times of great stress [Washington] could keep going when others failed.” (13-14)

Washington sought to instill the iron discipline he possessed into his men. He wrote: “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all” (p. 15).

In Washington’s day as in our own, concern for the ethics of war was a formidable issue. Washington came down solidly on the side of humane treatment for noncombatants and defeated enemies. “He often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies. Washington and his officers were keenly aware that the war was a contest for popular opinion, but they did not think in terms of ‘images’ or ‘messages’ in the manner of a modern journalist or politician. Their thinking was more substantive. The esteem of others was important to them mainly because they believed that victory would come only if they deserved to win." (276) Vanquished Hessians, for example, were well treated, and 23% of them chose to remain in America after the war. Still others would return home, only to emigrate later, bringing with them their families. (378-379) Dr. Fischer concludes: “In the late twentieth century, too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that we are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn’t so, and never was. The story of Washington’s Crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit – and so are we.” (379)

I appreciate Dr. Fischer’s character studies of British officers – including the probity of Admiral Richard Howe and the licentious behavior of his brother, General William Howe. I was particularly interested in his study of Charles Cornwallis. Previously, I knew him only as the general who surrendered his army at Yorktown. I learned he was a man of high principle and common sense, “one of the most appealing figures of his generation” (118). Later in his career, he received 42,000 pounds sterling after victory in India; he distributed it all to his men. His biographer wrote: “As a man he displayed, far more than [British General Henry] Clinton and others, qualities of honesty, justice, endurance, tolerance, humanity, and eagerness to better the life of those under him.” (120).

A leader has to learn to listen, a skill that evidently eluded British Major General James Grant, who was “a highly intelligent man, but he suffered from a selective form of social deafness: He could not hear what was said to him by people he despised as his inferiors” (183). Prejudice of this kind and productive leadership are incompatible. Only a leader of Washington’s rare ability could unite proud and independent thinking military commanders, each with fierce regional loyalties, into a fighting force that could persevere to victory through severe setbacks and deprivations. 

Others will have to evaluate Washington as military tactician and strategist. I admire him as an indefatigable leader whose resolve could not be broken. It is hard for me to imagine a successful Revolutionary war and American Independence without the leadership of George Washington. ----- Here are other books about Washington that I have enjoyed reading:

Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washinton by Richard Brookhiser

George Washington on Leadership by Richard Brookhiser

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis

Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign that Won the Revolution by Richard M. Ketchum