“Calm, clear, & exceeding pleasant”

In my assessment of Benjamin Galloway’s recollection of George Washington threatening to lead “the Virginia riflemen” against British troops in early 1773, I come finally to the environment of the event. Not the political environment, but the actual weather.

In 1818 Galloway stated that Lord Stirling (shown here) and Edward Foy stayed at Mount Vernon “for three or four days, the weather being very tempestuous and sleety.” His 1822 letter echoed that detail, saying the men “continued there during three days, the weather being very tempestuous and snowy.”

The sharp words from Washington to Foy must have occurred on the last evening the two men were at Mount Vernon since, per Galloway’s 1818 account:

during the remainder of the evening [Foy] observed a deathlike silence to Col. Washington. Capt. Foye and Lord Sterling departed from Mount Vernon immediately after breakfast the next morning.

The 1825 version said after the exchange Foy “turned his face immediately towards Mrs. [Martha] Washington, said a few words to her, looked very silly, and soon after requested to be showed to his chamber!” That telling didn’t mention the man’s departure from the estate, but the mood could not have been friendly.

Again, we can test the accuracy of those details. In addition to his “Where & how my time is Spent” journal, Washington also kept a weather diary. And here’s how he described the weather in the days when Galloway, Foy, and Stirling were visiting:

Jany. [1.] Calm, clear, & exceeding pleasant.

2. Calm & very pleasant in the Forenoon with Wind, Clouds, & Rain from the Southward & Eastward in the Afternoon.

3. Clear with the Wind pretty fresh first from the Southwest, & then from the Northwest. But neither Cold nor frosty.

That period wasn’t snowy at all! Maybe the rain on 2 January was enough to make Lord Stirling and Capt. Foy take advantage of Washington’s hospitality for one night, but they weren’t snowed in. Galloway’s memory was more dramatic than actual events.

Then comes the matter of Edward Foy’s movements. Washington’s diary shows Stirling and Foy arrived on 2 January and left on 4 January, not staying “three or four” says. It also offers no support for a rift with their host. In fact, Washington wrote:

4. Lord Sterling & Captn. Foy set out after Breakfast for the Northward thro Alexa. to which place I accompanied them.

The master of Mount Vernon actually went out of his way to show Capt. Foy off.

When I first read this anecdote about Washington striking his table, I was skeptical. After finding that Benjamin Galloway really did meet Foy and Stirling at Mount Vernon at the time he described, I was ready to accept his story. But the false details of the weather and Foy’s departure made me dubious again.

As a young man, Galloway might well have witnessed Washington and Foy disputing over how the royal government should deal with tax resisters in the wake of the Gaspee attack. Their words might have seemed quite heated by pre-war standards. Washington may even have clenched his false teeth and struck the table. But Galloway made the event more dramatic by 1818, with a snowstorm outside and a sudden departure. That means we shouldn’t rely on his memory of what Washington or anyone else said.

“I accompanied young Custis to Mount Vernon”

In sharing his story about hearing George Washington threaten to lead “Virginia riflemen” against the king’s troops in 1773, Benjamin Galloway included circumstantial details about the event.

The version he sent to the Hagerstown Torch Light in 1818 explained that he was invited to spend Christmas in 1772 at Mount Vernon as a friend of Washington’s stepson, John Parke Custis, from Annapolis. The reprinted story began:

A few days after I arrived at Mount Vernon, Lord Sterling and Captain [Edward] Foye, (the latter being the then secretary to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia) being on their way from Williamsburg to New York, called on Col. Washington, with whom they sojourned for three or four days, the weather being very tempestuous and sleety.

In his letter to the Washington Republican in 1822, Galloway prefaced his anecdote with this scene-setting:

Whilst I was a student at law, in the city of Annapolis, and the late Mr. John Parke Custis, was a pupil under the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, of the same place, by permission of his father-in-law [i.e., stepfather], the then Colonel George Washington, I accompanied young Custis to Mount Vernon, and passed the last week of the year (I think) 1772, and the first week of 1773, at said place. Lord Sterling and Captain Foye, the latter of whom was at that time private secretary to Lord Dunmore, the then governor of the Ancient Dominion, (Virginia was so called at that day,) being on the way from Williamsburg to the city of New York, stopped at Mount Vernon, and continued there during three days, the weather being very tempestuous and snowy.

The second telling also stated that “the Rev. Walter Magowan,…who had resided some years before in the Mount Vernon family as a private tutor to young Custis,” was also present.

Those paragraphs offer multiple names to assess. I was particularly struck by the presence of William Alexander, Lord Stirling (1726–1783), who lived in New York. Why would Galloway have run into him?

So I tested that claim against George Washington’s diary. His entries for the start of 1773 say:

Jany. 1st. Dined at Belvoir and returnd in the Afternoon. Found Mr. Grafton Dulany, Mr. Ben. Gallaway, Mr. Sam Hanson & Mr. Magowan and Doctr. Rumney here.

2. Doctr. Rumney went away after Breakfast. Lord Sterling & Captn. Foy with Colo. [George William] Fairfax came to Dinner. The latter went away afterwards. The other Gentlemen stayd.

So far Galloway’s memory proves remarkably correct. Forty-five years before his anecdote first appeared in print, the young man did spend the turn of the year 1773 at Mount Vernon. And the other guests there included:

• Lord Stirling, who was traveling around Virginia selling lottery tickets.
• Capt. Edward Foy, secretary to Lord Dunmore and traveling companion for Stirling.
• the Rev. Walter Magowan, former tutor and now clergyman in Virginia.

Washington’s diary didn’t mention his stepson Custis, but of course that eighteen-year-old was then a resident, not a guest. According to the Washington Papers editors, Grafton Dulany was one of Custis’s schoolmates in Annapolis, so he had brought chums home for the holidays.

TOMORROW: Looking in the newspapers.

Assessing a Close Encounter with Washington

I’m always interested in American Revolution stories that pop into print decades after the conflict, and I’m habitually skeptical.

I’m especially skeptical about a genre of nineteenth-century stories I call “Close Encounters with George Washington.”

These tales describe how the person telling the story, or the narrator’s ancestor or local hero, had a genuine, one-on-one, meaningful interaction with the great Washington.

The general might dine at the family estate, or make a quiet visit to thank the person for his otherwise undocumented service to the republic. Or ask for help exercising by jumping rope. Or listen to a lesson about Hanukkah.

Some of these tales are laughable, others plausible but unproven. A few even have solid evidence behind them.

Therefore, when I first read Benjamin Galloway’s story about how George Washington reacted to a Crown official’s threat to suppress colonial tax resistance after the Gaspee affair, I was full of doubts but open to evidence.

It turned out that, as I recounted yesterday, Galloway was notorious in Hagerstown, Maryland, for writing to the newspapers. He had a lot to tell people. The two versions of his anecdote that come down to us appeared as newspaper dispatches.

Galloway also had a lifelong need to prove his patriotism because he had declined to serve Maryland as attorney general during the Revolutionary War and then took strong political stances, thereby attracting lots of opponents happy to impugn him. What better way could Galloway prove his deep-founded patriotism than by associating himself with Washington?

Galloway wrote one surviving letter to President Washington, in 1792, seeking a federal job for a mutual acquaintance. In that letter Galloway didn’t introduce himself, suggesting he and Washington had already met. On the other hand, the text doesn’t hint at any friendship. (In contrast, Galloway kept up a long correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, whom he supported.)

After considering the source of an anecdote, I turn to internal details. Both versions quote Washington around the start of 1773 threatening to stop a redcoat column with “the Virginia riflemen alone!” Was that even a thing? Or, in less modern terms, was the phrase “Virginia riflemen” established by that time? I found no examples in newspapers or Founders Online before the war.

In June 1775 the Continental Congress voted to recruit rifle companies to augment the army outside Boston even before it appointed a commander-in-chief—suggesting that idea had come from Washington, head of the committees on military matters. The majority of those riflemen came from Pennsylvania, however. When Gen. Washington became the first person in Founders Online to use the phrase “Virginia rifle men” in late 1776, he was distinguishing that state’s companies from the rest. The phrase really spread in the early 1800s, when Galloway told his story.

Beyond phrasing, there’s the larger question of whether George Washington would have blatantly threatened to take up arms against Edward Foy, secretary to royal governor Dunmore. According to Jefferson, writing around the time Galloway shared his story, Foy “was believed to be the chief instigator of all [Dunmore’s] violences, and being very ill-tempered, haughty & presumptuous, was very obnoxious.” But that reputation might just have made Foy a convenient foil in Galloway’s narrative.

Back in April 1769, Washington had written to his friend George Mason about the possibility of armed conflict with the British government:

At a time when our lordly Masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something shou’d be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our Ancestors; . . . That no man shou’d scruple, or hesitate a moment to use a–ms in defense of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; Yet A–ms I wou’d beg leave to add, should be a last resource, de[r]nier resort.

Washington was thus ahead of most of his fellow colonists in discussing that contingency. But still he was disguising the word “arms.” In contrast, in Galloway’s anecdote Washington was, though politely and conditionally, threatening military resistance to his king’s troops—and his royal governor’s top aide.

Finally, in evaluating tales like this, I always look for the earliest versions and then for specific details, sometimes seemingly extraneous, that come with them. Are those details testable? Do they support or undercut the source’s credibility?

In this case, Benjamin Galloway actually included a lot of details ready to be confirmed or refuted.

TOMORROW: The circumstances.

“A deathlike silence to Col. Washington”

Yesterday I quoted a letter that appeared in the Washington Republican newspaper in September 1822, describing a conversation at Mount Vernon almost fifty years before.

I found another version of the same anecdote, reportedly published in the Hagerstown Torch Light on 21 Dec 1818. Unlike the Washington Republican letter, this article didn’t spark any reprints in other newspapers that I could locate.

My access to back issues of the Hagerstown Torch Light being limited, I actually read this letter in Thomas J. C. Williams’s A History of Washington County, Maryland, published in 1906. (The following year, Williams abridged his text for an article in the Maryland Historical Magazine.)

Here’s the text as published in 1906, with added paragraph breaks:

A large company being at the supper table the last evening they were at Mount Vernon, Col. [George] Washington’s well known servant man, named Billy, entered the room from Alexandria, to which place he had been sent by Col. Washington for newspapers and letters, and delivered some newspapers to Col. Washington, who cast them about midway the table, and requested those who took them up to read aloud such articles of intelligence as they might judge would be desirable to the company.

I being seated in a chair which enabled me to lay my hand on one of the newspapers, took the liberty of so doing, and soon announced to the company a very interesting fact, to-wit: The destruction of the King of England’s sloop of war, called Gaspee, by a party of Yankees; she having when in close pursuit (heavy gale of wind) of a Brother Jonathan coaster (smuggling) missed stays and being so near to the shore, the commander of the Gaspee lost all command of her, and she was run ashore high and dry. The Yankees in a short space of time collected in sufficient force and burnt her.

Captain [Edward] Foye asked me to pass the newspaper from which I had communicated to the company the foregoing (I will venture to say to him) bitter pill read the article and instantaneously declared ore rotundo, that blood must be drawn from the Yankees before they would be taught to conduct themselves as obedient subjects ought to do; and insolently said that he, yes, that he would engage to put down all opposition to the execution of revenue acts which had been lately passed, by the King and Parliament of Great Britain; and moreover that he would undertake so to do at the head of five thousand British troops; which he would march from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina.

Col. Washington was engaged in perusing one of the newspapers, whilst Captain Foye was uttering these insulting and audacious words. Col. Washington withdrew his eyes from the newspaper, placed them steadfastly on Captain Foye, and observed that he (Col. W.) entertained no doubt that Capt. Foye could march at the head of five thousand British troops from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, but added that he should be obliged to Capt. Foye to inform him (Col. W.) whether he meant as a friend or as an adversary! “If as an adversary,” said Col. Washington, “and you, sir would inform me of your intention so to do a few weeks previous to your entry into the ancient dominion, I would engage to give you a handsome check with the Virginia riflemen alone!”

There were on the supper table, at the time when Col. Washington favored Capt. Foye with the above stated retort courteous, twelve or fifteen wine glasses and two or three decanters of excellent old Madeira. At the instant that Col. Washington uttered the words Virginia riflemen alone, he struck the table with his right hand so violently that the decanters and glasses leaped from their proper places and I expected to have beheld them all prostrate on the table.

Capt Foye made no reply but immediately addressed his conversation to Mrs. [Martha] Washington, at whose left hand he was seated; and during the remainder of the evening he observed a deathlike silence to Col. Washington. Capt. Foye and Lord Sterling departed from Mount Vernon immediately after breakfast the next morning.

This anecdote is very similar to the one quoted yesterday, even including some of the same phrasing. There are also some differences in wording and level of detail, though nothing directly contradictory. That suggests the person telling this tale was rather practiced at it.

The biggest difference between the two versions is that this one didn’t include the paragraph about the Rev. Walter Magowan telling other guests at Mount Vernon that he’d never seen Washington so upset.

I don’t know whether the Hagerstown Torch Light included the name of the person who told this story, but Williams included it in his local history: Benjamin Galloway.

TOMORROW: Who was Benjamin Galloway?

“He had never seen the master of Mount Vernon so displeased”

Last month I addressed the idea that George Washington attended fireworks in celebration of the second anniversary of the Gaspee attack in 1774.

I found that claim to be unsupported by any evidence in Washington’s writings or in the newspapers of Williamsburg, Virginia.

Taverns occasionally displayed fireworks, Washington occasionally attended, and in this case the date of a fireworks show simply coincided with the anniversary of an event in another colony many miles away.

Another source describes Washington showing a strong response to the Gaspee affair—or, more accurately, a strong response to a Crown official’s response to the Gaspee affair.

This story starts with the founding of the Washington Republican newspaper in August 1822 by the printer Thomas L. McKenny to support the political career of John C. Calhoun, then U.S. Secretary of War. McKenny invited his new readers to send material for him to print. Early the next month, someone from western Maryland supplied McKenny with this letter:

Mr. Printer: The authenticity of the following communication may be confidently relied on by the public, as there are now alive those who heard the person that now furnishes it, narrate the facts contained therein, immediately after his return from Mount Vernon to the city of Annapolis, precisely as he is now about to state them.
B. G.

Washington County, Sept. 5, 1822.

...just after the cloth was removed from the supper table, a man of colour named Billy, Col. Washington’s favourite servant, who had been sent by his master to Alexandria for letters and newspapers, entered the supper room and delivered to his master a large bundle containing letters and newspapers. Col. Washington, with a cast of his hand, placed the newspapers about mid way the supper table, around which there were then sitting a large company, Lord Sterling on the right, and Capt. [Edward] Foye on the left hand of Mrs. [Martha] Washington. When Col. Washington so placed the papers, he requested that if they contained any important information, it might be read aloud to the company.

It so happened that I laid my hand on an Eastern paper, which contained an article of intelligence to the following effect: “That a Yankee smuggler, being pursued by one of the King’s vessels of war, (and I think she was called the Gaspee,) hugged the shore so closely that the former (the wind then blowing extremely hard) missed stays, and ran plump ashore. The neighbouring brother Jonathans quickly collected in great numbers, the tide being at ebb, they soon boarded and burned her.”

I read said article aloud to the company, and was immediately requested by Captain Faye to pass the newspaper to him, who, when he had read the article, he had the audacity to declare that “The Yankees must be phlebotomized!” and that he, yes, that he, “would engage, at the head of five thousand British regulars, to march from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, and put down all opposition to the revenue acts,” that had been recently passed by the British Parliament for the purpose of raising a revenue in the British colonies.

Col. Washington, at the close of this insulting declaration, instantly fixing his eyes on Capt. Foye, observed: “I question not, Sir, that you could march from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, at the head of five thousand British regulars: but do you mean to say, Sir, that you could do so, as a friend, or as an enemy? If as the latter, and you will allow me a few weeks notice of your intention, I will engage to give you a handsome check with the Virginia riflemen alone.” When Col. Washington was uttering the words with the Virginia riflemen alone, he struck the table so violently with his clenched hand, that some wine glasses and a decanter near him with difficulty maintained their upright positions.

Captain Foye made no reply; but turned his face immediately towards Mrs. Washington, said a few words to her, looked very silly, and soon after requested to be showed to his chamber!

Col. Washington appeared to be very much displeased. Not a word was said by any of the company, in reference to said article of intelligence, while they remained in the room; but when the Rev. Walter Magowan, who was one of the company, and who had resided some years before in the Mount Vernon family as a private tutor to young [John Parke] Custis, had, with two other gentlemen and myself, arrived at our bed chamber, he remarked that, during the whole time he had lived in Col. Washington’s family, he had never seen the master of Mount Vernon so displeased as he appeared to have been that evening with Captain Foye.

I transcribed this from the 18 Sept 1822 Daily National Intelligencer, one of several newspapers that republished the Washington Republican item in late 1822 and early 1823. I couldn’t unearth the Republican itself. (As usual, I’ve broken the long block of text into paragraphs for easier reading on the web.) 

This letter has rarely been republished or cited since. In fact, I couldn’t find a single Washington biographer who quoted what this correspondent said he witnessed around the start of the year 1773.

TOMORROW: Another version of the same tale.