THE SECRET PLOT TO REMOVE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF :
After humiliating defeats at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777, much of the Continental Congress had lost faith in General Washington’s military abilities.
The campaign of 1777 was, by most estimations, the low point of Washington’s military career.
He retreated from Brandywine and in the fog of the Battle of Germantown, he let a probable triumph, slip away.
The British victory at Germantown insured the British would hold Philadelphia through the winter of 1777 – 1778.
Meanwhile, his countryman, General Horatio Gates had won a smashing victory at Saratoga.
There was a desire expressed within the military and Congress, to have the commander in chief sent home to Mount Vernon and replace him with the more successful Horatio Gates.
Among Washington’s detractors , a factious Congressional clique, Benjamin Rush the highly esteemed “Father of American Medicine”, Samuel Adams, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee and a certain ambitious foreign officer named Thomas Conway- all highly critical of Washington’s handling of the war.
Dissatisfied with many aspects of the war – ranging from how supplies were procured, to battlefield performance, and the supervision of soldiers by the commander in chief united.
Whether they united deliberately to form a “cabal,” or plot, is debatable; regardless, their sniping, griping, and machinations have come to be known as the “Conway Cabal.”
Thomas Conway moved from Ireland to France at age six.
In 1749 he joined the French army, and by 1772 he held the rank of colonel.
In 1776 Conway was recommended for service in the American army, and arrived in the United States the following year.
Appointed a brigadier general, he saw action at Brandywine and Germantown.
After Conway’s able performance at the Battle of Brandywine on September 21, 1777, General Sullivan wrote:
“His regulations in his Brigade are much better than any in the Army, and his knowledge of military matters far exceeds any officer we have.”
(It was in rallying Conway’s Brigade at Brandywine that the Marquis de Lafayette was wounded in the leg.)
Buoyed by his own bravery at Brandywine, Conway wrote a boastful letter to Congress asking for a promotion to major general.
Such a promotion would have hopscotched him over many senior brigade leaders. While he waited for a reply from Congress, Conway continued disparaging Washington.
He was overheard saying,
“as to his (Washington’s) talents for the command of an Army, they were miserable indeed.”
- George Washington’s Tent: The First Oval Office
When Washington got wind of Conway’s self-important letter to Congress, he wrote to Richard Henry Lee protesting any appointment of Conway.
“General Conway’s merit, then, as an Officer, and his importance in this Army, exist more in his own imagination than in reality: For it is a maxim with him, to leave no service of his own untold, nor to want any thing which is to be obtained by importunity…”
Washington goes on to write, promoting Conway would also have a disastrous effect on the morale of his longer-serving, more devoted officers who might resign. Washington continues,
To Sum up the whole, I have been a Slave to the service: I have undergone more than most Men are aware of, to harmonize so many discordant parts, but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way…
Although regarded as a skillful disciplinarian of infantry, Conway was refused promotion to major general—largely due to the opposition of George Washington, who believed that there were older officers more deserving of the rank.
Dr. Benjamin Rush was one of the most vocal critics of Washington’s handling of troops.
This Signer of the Declaration of Independence, though no longer a member of Congress, was a respected army physician.
He wrote a scathing, though unsigned letter to Patrick Henry, disparaging Washington’s generalship and commending General Gates who was at the head of the northern army.
In this letter was the following:
The northern army has shown us what Americans are cable of doing with a GENERAL at their head. The spirit of the southern army is no ways inferior to the spirit of the northern. A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway would in a few weeks render them an irresistible body of men.
In a separate letter Rush wrote,
“The present management of our army would depopulate America if men grew among us as speedily and spontaneously as blades of grass.”
John Adams, Rush’s best friend, echoed the doctor’s disgust,
“I am sick of Fabian systems in all quarters!”
Conway seemed like an especially good choice, since he had a bone to pick with Washington.
Disgruntled, Conway took his complaint to the Continental Congress, where he threatened to resign.
The squeaky wheel routine worked; he walked away with a promotion and a new title: Inspector General of the Army.
Washington remained unimpressed.
But now that Conway had the backing of the Continental Congress, he decided to take aim at Washington.
The new Inspector General wrote to Horatio Gates, also a general, urging him to take a run at the top job.
When Washington caught word of the letter, he confronted Conway and Gates, both of whom backed down quickly.
While the War Board considered Conway’s resignation, political foes of Washington in Congress promoted Conway to the newly formed position of Inspector General, which bore the rank major general.
The Inspector General (ironically a post conceived by Washington, after a suggestion by a foreign volunteer) was to devote himself full time to preparing a training manual and assembling and implementing a guide of military maneuvers.
Conway would work alongside Washington, who was now at Valley Forge, but would be responsible only to the War Board.
To add insult to injury, as far as Washington was concerned, Congress had appointed Horatio Gates as President of the Board of War, on November 27, 1777.
Naturally, when Conway arrived at a freezing Valley Forge, on December 29, Washington gave him the cold shoulder. Inspector General Conway began to shrink before Washington’s wrathful eye and icy formality. In one charged exchange of letters, Washington wrote to Conway asking him how he intended to conduct business.
Conway wrote back to the effect, that if Washington found his service “disagreeable” that “I am very ready to return to France.”
Washington shot back, while he was very willing to work with Congress and accept their decisions, members of his staff, felt slighted by Conway’s promotion – particularly in light of how Conway complained after Baron de Kalb’s promotion.
Given enough time: a loose cannon will shoot himself in the foot.
Conway wrote another letter to Washington:
We know but the great Frederick in Europe and the great Washington in this continent. I certainly never was so rash as to pretend to such a prodigious height. By the complexion of your letter and by the reception you have honored me with since my arrival, I perceive that I have not the happiness of being agreeable to your Excellency and that I can expect no support in fulfilling the laborious duty of the Inspector General.
On January 2, 1778, Washington forwarded Conway’s diatribe to Congress along with a cover letter.
In his letter, Washington confessed personal disdain for Conway but made it clear, it never affected the professional manner in which business was conducted nor was the support Conway expected ever withheld.
Conway later discovered that Wilkinson was responsible for leaking the contents of the letter and subsequently informed Gates of the betrayal.
In response, Gates wrote Washington a letter accusing someone of stealing his letters with Conway.
The phrasing was suspicious, and Washington realized that Gates and Conway had been exchanging multiple correspondence because of the use of the word “letters.”
But the plot—if it really was one—fizzled quickly.
While there were surely plenty of whispers, just how big the conspiracy against Washington truly was/is difficult to tell.
The Cabal collapsed on January 19, when Conway and Gates made a trip to Congress, sitting at York.
They went before Congress, to try and clear their names, but would not reveal the original “weak general” letter, which was the catalyst for the cabal.
Lafayette was one of the few revolutionaries who stood by Washington, during the conspiracy, and the young Frenchman branded Conway
“an ambitious and dangerous man.”
Lafayette also delegated himself spokesman, for the French court.
He did his utmost to convey the conviction that France regarded Washington, as one and the same, as the American cause.
France could not even conceive of another commander, he implied.
General Gates, who’d built his reputation on winning at Saratoga, was soon tarnished by a major defeat at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina.
In 1778, Conway intrigued to be named second in command to Lafayette, during an expedition to Canada.
Lafayette refused to go along with the plan although, Conway did accompany the expedition—but as third in command.
Thomas Mifflin resigned from the Board of War.
James Wilkinson resigned as Secretary of the Board of War.
Horatio Gates returned to his troops a chastened general.
Thomas Conway was then transferred to a subordinate command in the Hudson Highlands. Naturally he protested this transfer.
On April 22, 1778, Conway again offered his resignation to Congress. This time, to his surprise, Congress accepted it.
Conway resigned from the Continental Army in April 1778, but continued to badmouth the Commander-in-Chief.
Believing himself about to die, he wrote a long letter of apology to Washington.
His opponent, a Washington admirer, noted:
“I have stopped the damned rascal’s lying tongue, at any rate.”
But Conway recovered, returned to France, and rejoined the French army.
He served in Flanders and India before returning to France after the start of the French Revolution.
In 1793 he was forced to flee France because of support for the royalist cause.
He died in exile in 1800.