That unsatisfying eighteenth-century document became the “Supreme Law of the Land” and still governs the United States to this day. The few words immortalized on that old parchment define the nation. They embody the radical ideal that every citizen has a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” regardless of his or her heredity.10 Forged amidst turmoil, this document has never really escaped it. Its words not only have served as kindling for uprisings and wars but also remain at the center of contemporary debates over our nation’s soul.
America’s memory of General George Washington’s Revolutionary War powers has faded over the past two centuries. However, the Constitution has not. The Commander in Chief clause remains unaltered. The president still derives his constitutional military power from those precious few words that the Founders wrote during that hot summer of 1787. What it means to be the “American commander in chief” may be murky now, but it was not so back then. The founding generation ratified that clause with a specific person in mind. That gentleman farmer, who saved the fledgling nation, set precedents that still define those war powers necessary to defend the United States.
“Justice and Policy will require recourse to be had to the Law of retaliation, however abhorrent and disagreeable to our natures in cases of Torture and capital punishment.” 1
—GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1776
The lessons may be forgotten, but history never dies.
Early in the Revolution, an enraged General Washington wrote to Congress regarding the capture of a young woman “of easy virtue.”2 The “trollop” of a Loyalist spy, she had been instructed to transmit to British forces an encrypted letter concerning American military plans.3 But she proved to be a bumbling conduit. Disobeying orders, this “infamous hussy”4 gave the letter to a local baker with whom she had “shared idyllic hours of dalliance,” and requested that he deliver it instead.5 Noticing that the letter was directed to a British officer, the baker grew suspicious and turned it over to the American authorities.
Washington was outraged by the treacherous letter and dispatched his troops to capture the woman. They quickly located the not-so-sly minx and brought her back to their general. Washington notified Congress, “I immediately secured the Woman, but for a long time she was proof against every threat and perswasion to discover the Author.”6 He was desperate to find the mole among the American forces, but the “subtle, shrewd jade” obstinately refused to reveal the traitor behind the plot.7 General Washington faced a familiar dilemma: how far are we willing to go in order to save American lives?
Through undisclosed means, “at length she was brought to a confession.”8
The Americans captured a whopping 14,000 enemy soldiers during the Revolutionary War, and some of them became casualties in the United States’ struggle to forge a nation.9 The chapters in Part II analyze General Washington’s treatment of enemy combatants.10 Part I demonstrated that Washington served as the model for the future presidents’ war powers, and this part begins delving into precisely what his Revolutionary War precedents were.
Amidst the bubbling waterfall of a sleepy New England state park lies an innocuous boulder. As the afternoon sun pours through the leaves of the maple trees that dominate the area, this curiously round stone blends into the picturesque scenery. Here, the boulder lay forgotten for hundreds of years, much like the lessons to be learned from the story behind it.
The quaint Connecticut town of East Haddam that developed around the boulder appears distinctly puritanical to this day, with friendly suburbanites painstakingly grooming their neat lawns and colonial style homes. At a small bend in the tame Connecticut River, the village is known for its stately opera house, quiet streets, and serene fall foliage. Of all places, one would never expect East Haddam to have been the site of a gruesome crime spawned from the fervor of an angry mob. But it was. That boulder’s present location is a testament to the violence that once engulfed the region—it lies there as the direct result of a horrific attack on a local family.
In the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, the American colonists began to rebel against Britain’s dominion in the 1760s. Following the Seven Years’ War, Britain passed several measures that infuriated the colonists. British taxpayers were fed up with the enormous expense of defending the colonies from the French, the Native Americans, and other aggressors. Thus, the British government sought to force the colonists to share more of the burden for their own defense. The Americans did not take kindly to this new, stricter motherland.
First, the British forbade the colonies from expanding into the vast, fertile lands west of the eastern seaboard. Britain’s objective was to appease the Native Americans by permitting them to live peacefully on these lands and thereby avoid costly battles. With the Appalachian Mountains between them, the tribes and the colonies were less likely to fight. But the Americans, having long eyed these lands for their own westward expansion, were incensed by such meddling.1 And London was not done antagonizing them.
Next, London struck closer to home with a law commanding that the Americans quarter British troops in their houses. This Quartering Act seemed fair to the British, since they were merely requiring the colonists to house their own defenders. From the American perspective, however, their military protectors suddenly appeared more like oppressors. At any time, the Americans might face armed British soldiers bursting into their homes and demanding quarter. In light of this perceived threat to their property, family, and liberty, violent rebellion began to seem all the more justified.
But nothing enraged the Americans as much as London’s encroachment on their wallets. In an effort to increase tax revenues, Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773.2 This law was intended to induce the Americans to switch from smuggled, untaxed Dutch tea to the British variety. Even though this infamous act reduced the price of legally imported tea, it created a tea monopoly for the British East India Company, thereby threatening to force tea smugglers and other “entrepreneurial” colonists out of business. Although the colonies were not only among the most prosperous but also among the lowest-taxed places on earth, the Americans were nevertheless outraged by the Crown’s intrusion.3 To them, the Tea Act stood “as a mark of Supremacy of [the British] Parliament.”4 In retaliation, bands of protesters throughout the colonies used force and intimidation to drive the British tea from colonial ports. The Connecticut contingent of one such group, called the “Sons of Liberty,” was particularly irked by a certain East Haddam resident’s penchant for British tea.5
Abner Beebe was a mill owner and physician who remained loyal to the British Crown even as the colonies were beginning to rebel. He was an educated, churchgoing man who gave food to the poor and contributed