- 101
Washington, George, as Continental Commander, Retired
Description
Provenance
Literature
The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, ed. Abbot, 4:96–8
Condition
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Catalogue Note
Washington condoles James Tilghman on the death of his son, Tench Tilghman, Washington's former aide de camp: "there is this consolation to be drawn, that while living, no man could be more esteemed—and since dead, none more lamented than Colo. Tilghman."
Tench Tilghman died in mid-April 1786, succumbing to liver disease probably contracted during the devastating winter encampment at Valley Forge. On 26 May, a grieving James Tilghman confided to Washington that "no man ever had a more dutiful and affectionate son—He made a great part of my happiness and his death has clouded my prospects exceedingly" (Papers, Confed. 4:78). In this reply, Washington expresses his own keen sense of bereavement with uncharacteristic emotionality:
"I have just had the pleasure to receive your favor of the 26th ulto. Of all the numerous acquaintances of your lately deceased son, & amidst all the sorrowings that are mingled on that melancholy occasion, I may venture to assert that (excepting those of his nearest relatives) none could have felt his death with more regret than I did—No one entertained a higher opinion of his worth, or has imbibed sentiments of greater friendship than I had done. That you, Sir, should have felt the keenest anguish for this loss, I readily conceive, the ties of paternal affection united with those of friendship, could not fail to have produced this effect. It is however a dispensation, the wisdom of which is inscrutable; and amidst all your grief, there is this consolation to be drawn, that while living, no man could be more esteemed—and since dead, none more lamented than Colo. Tilghman."
A significant letter in which Washington explains and defends his handling of the "Asgill affair." The composure of Washington's first years of peacetime retirement was troubled not only by the deaths of several compatriots who had served closely with him during the war, but also by administrative annoyances that lingered beyond the cessation of hostilities.
In 1782, Charles Asgill, a nineteen-year-old guardsman and prisoner of war, was selected by lottery and ordered by Washington to be executed in retaliation for the hanging of Joshua Huddy, a New Jersey militia captain and privateer killed by Loyalists for a crime that he could not have committed. Asgill's sentence became a cause célèbre, and Washington eventully had him released. James Tilghman's letter informed Washington that, safely back in England, Asgill was accusing his American captors "of illiberal treatment & cruelty towards himself" and alleging that a gallows had been erected outside his quarters. After considering Tilghman's offer to provide his son's papers concerning the New York Committee of Correspondence, Washington, indignant and surprised, firmly acquits himself of Asgill's accusations:
"That a calumny of this kind had been reported, I knew: I had laid my account for the calumnies of anonymous scriblers but I never before had conceived that such an one as is related, could have originated with, or met the countenance of Captn Asgill, whose situation often filled me with the keenest anguish. ... My favourable opinion of him, however, is forfeited if, being acquainted with these reports, he did not immediately contradict them. That I could not have given countenance to the insults which he says were offered to his person, especially the groveling one of creating a gibbet before his prison window, will, I expect, readily be believed when I explicitly declare that I never heard of a single attempt to offer an insult, & that I had every reason to be convinced that he was treated by the officers around him with all the tenderness & every civility in their power. I would fain ask Captain Asgill how he could reconcile such belief (if his mind had been seriously impressed with it) to the continual indulgencies & procrastinations he had experienced? He will not, I presume, deny that he was admitted to his parole, within ten or twelve miles of the British lines; if not to a formal parole, to a confidence yet more unlimitted, by being permitted for the benefit of his health & the recreation of his mind, to ride, not only about the cantonment, but into the surrounding country for many miles, with his friend & companion Major Gordon constantly attending him. Would not these indulgencies have pointed a military character to the fountain from which they flow'd? Did he conceive that discipline was so lax in the American Army, as that any officer in it would have granted these liberties to a person confined by the express order of the commander in chief, unless authorised to do so by the same authority? ...
"I was not without suspicions after the final liberation and return of Captn Asgill to New York, that his mind had been improperly impressed; or that he was defective in politeness. The treatment he had met with, in my conception, merited an acknowledgement. None however was offered, and I never sought for the cause.
"This concise account of the treatment of Captn Asgill is given from a hasty recollection of the circumstances. If I had had time, and it was essential, by unpacking my papers & recurring to authentic files, I might have been more pointed, and full. It is in my power at any time to convince the unbiased mind that my conduct through the whole of this transaction was neither influenced by passion—guided by inhumanity—or under the controul of any interference whatsoever. I essayed every thing to save the innocent, and bring the guilty to punishment, with what success the impartial world must and hereafter certainly will decide."
As the controversy about Washington's treatment of Asgill continued to fester, it soon did become essential for the general to review his papers. He admitted in a letter to David Humphrey, who was engaged in writing an accurate history of the affair, that "a bad memory had run me into an error in my narrative [to James Tilghman] ... For it should seem by that, as if the loose and unguarded manner in which Captn Asgill was held, was sanctioned by me; whereas one of my letters to Colo Dayton condemns this conduct, and orders Asgill to be closely confined" (1 Sept. 1786, Papers, Confed. 4:236). The following day Washington wrote to Tilghman asking that he not circulate Washington's account of the affair until an accurate report based on his official documents could be prepared. Humphreys's "Conduct of General Washington Respecting the Confinement of Captain Asgill placed in the True Point of Light" was first published in The New-Haven Gazette and the Connecticut Magazine, 16 November 1786, and frequently reprinted.