Heck Of A Guy

Thanks to The History Channel, TiVo, and a dearth of new episodes of the tube trash I usually watch, I saw Washington The Warrior¹ this weekend – and learned a thing or two.

This low-key, two-hour special provided at least a partial corrective to the tendency of accounts of successful events, whether battlefield victories, triumphant political campaigns, or accomplishments in business, education, medicine, or other fields, to present a linear progression:

Decision A led to Event B which led to Consequence C which led to Decision D which led to …

In Washington’s case, the critique of this linearity² has been that it is an effort to apotheosize Washington as an unsullied hero although it seems to me to be equally motivated by a condescending contempt for the public’s capacity to wrestle with complexities and ambiguities. Consequently, these historical accounts are oversimplified and conflicts are unilaterally and covertly resolved rather than elaborated by the author, robbing the reader/viewer/listener of the richness of the original story.

Four points from Washington The Warrior were impressive rebuttals to this linearity:

1. Before the French & Indian War began, Washington’s forces set upon a group of French soldiers, who were taken by surprise. Ten were killed, including their commander, Ensign Coulon de Jumonville, one was wounded, and twenty-one were taken prisoner. The French declared that Jumonville was assassinated after the French had surrendered and while he was explaining that he was on a diplomatic mission, a claim Washington and the British denied. In any case, Washington’s response to an ambiguous situation, the discovery of a group of French soldiers before any hostilities had been declared, was a preemptive attack, an action that one of the History Channel’s commentator described as “lack[ing] subtlety.” A retaliatory attack by the French proved a full fledged disaster for Washington’s troops. This sequence of events was the final spark that set off the French & Indian War.

2. In 1777, a group of detractors, including Horatio Gates, Samuel Adams, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, and Benjamin Rush (AKA the “Father of American Medicine”) actively promoted replacing Washington, whom they characterized as a weak and unskilled leader, with the then more successful Gates (pictured on the right). When this was made known to Washington, he was so frustrated and embittered that he threatened to resign if his performance was brought into question.

3. As it turned out, the single most important military skill learned by both Washington and his men as they evolved into a true army may well have been retreating in an orderly fashion.³

4. In 1781, Washington, who had long maintained a singular focus on pushing the British out of New York, was presented with the opportunity to realize this vision when a French fleet arrived to support the American cause. The commander of the French land forces, Rochambeau, was an experienced, professional soldier, who immediately grasped that the advantage lay not in undertaking a siege of the well fortified and heavily manned English position in New York but in forcing battles in which the American and French armies would hold the military advantages. Washington was swayed by the Frenchman’s arguments and, despite his personal investment in the plan to attack New York, capitulated to Rochambeau’s point of view. The result was the victory at Yorktown.

So?

So, for my investment of two hours (when I could have, no doubt, been watching those re-runs of Law & Order that, by FCC regulation, are broadcast 24/7), I enriched my perspective in at least two aspects:

1. Washington seems a bit more human and substantially more heroic to me now that I see that he grew as a leader, learning from his mistakes; that he was pragmatic enough to understand the value of an inglorious but strategic retreat despite the contrary demands of his own ambition and his critics; and that he was wise enough to be see the value of and be won over by an opposing argument.

2. Knowing that Washington’s war-time actions were not always gallant or wise but were, on occasion, tragic, unnecessarily causing the deaths of many of the men under his command, and arguably appalling (e.g., ambushing another country’s soldiers who were not threatening his forces during peacetime) and knowing that he was not always lauded by his countrymen but was ridiculed and severely criticized by important American leaders enlarges my point of view on contemporary events. One wonders, for example, had Washington’s preemptive attack on the French (a story replete with the possibility that Washington failed to halt or was complicit in an assassination of the French leader) occurred in 2006 rather than 1754, if Washington would have survived the controversy to become the leader of the country’s armed forces and then, as President, its commander in chief. I am not, obviously, arguing that atrocities should be ignored or excused; I’m just pointing out that few events that are important are also simple.

Footnotes

1. The next broadcast of this presentation is scheduled for 5 PM, June 10, 2006 on The History Channel. For other scheduled showings, see The History Channel Web Site.↩
2. Of course, this tendency to present history in linear fashion is so long-standing and embedded that it has provided generations of scholars, critics, and, especially, college and graduate school students with the opportunity to write smugly revisionist interpretations – which provides the next generation with the opportunity to write smugly re-revisionist interpretations – which provides the next generation with the opportunity to write … , a sequence that is interrupted only when someone in the fourth or fifth iteration of the cycle realizes that it’s time to denounce the revisionists and return to the unreconstructed original notion – which provides the next generation with the opportunity to smugly re-write first generation revisionist interpretations.↩
3. A major contributor to this training was Baron von Steuben, whose credentials as a “Lieutenant General in the King of Prussia’s service,” were — oh, let’s call them optimized, but whose effectiveness in training soldiers was, by all accounts, awesome.↩

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