A CRISIS OF PEACE

A tale from the very beginnings of the republic—and of its disaffected military.

As Head (History/Univ. of Central Florida; Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering From the United States in the Early Republic, 2015, etc.) observes early on, the British didn’t march away after Yorktown, never to return. Instead, they retained control over New York as well as Savannah and Charleston and held them for another year and a half until the Treaty of Versailles was ratified. George Washington took his tired army to the banks of the Hudson River to keep an eye on the British, and there, at Newburgh, a “crisis of peace” emerged, one that pitted some of Washington’s officers against Congress. For its part, the Continental Army was still irregularly equipped and poorly paid while Congress and its civilian employees counted on regular paychecks and led comfortable lives in Philadelphia. Head recounts the origins of the revolt that came close to erupting within the ranks of the revolutionary forces, pitting the military against the government. Along the way, he examines Congress’ monetary policy and notes that financing the Revolution had led to near ruin not just because of the huge cost of the war, but also its inability to collect taxes across state lines, leading to “a canyon of debt” that made the dollar effectively worthless. Robert Morris, appointed superintendent of finance, floated credit from his own fortune until Alexander Hamilton could come along to straighten up the house, even as Washington quelled an uprising in the making that might have allowed Britain “to steal a victory in the end.” The author’s narrative has its moments, but his approach is of the rocks-for-jocks and gods-for-clods variety, as when he adverts to The Godfather (“But just when Morris thought he was out, Congress and the army pulled him back in”) and affects breeziness (“the British Army was really good”), slips that do the book no favors.

A footnote to the larger history of the Revolution, of some interest to buffs.