New York - The Novel

aloof manner, his commander was secretly troubled by doubt and melancholia. And the fact that the general had to overcome these inner conflicts, also, made James admire him all the more.
    In March, Mrs. Washington had come from Virginia to join her husband in camp, and this led to a lightening of everyone’s spirits. For if the general was inclined to seem cold and distant, Martha Washington was warm and comfortable. She would invite even the most junior officers to eat with them, as if they were all part of a large, extended family. She might, in her own right, be one of the richest women in Virginia, but she’d tend the sick and wounded men by the hour. Come the spring of 1777, James was so devoted to his commander that Washington might have been his second father. And the general clearly liked and trusted him in turn.
    There was one thing about their relationship that amused James Master—as a young Yankee officer had complained to him that Easter.
    “You have an unfair advantage over me, Master, with the general.”
    “What’s that?”
    “He likes you because he thinks you’re a gentleman. And he doesn’t really like me, because he reckons I’m not.”
    “He thinks very highly of you,” James assured him.
    “Oh, he treats me well. He’s the fairest man I have ever met, and I’d follow him to the gates of Hell. But it’s the same with all us Yankees from the north-east—he doesn’t like our manners.”
    In fact, James had noticed the same thing himself. As well as being born a Southern gentleman, Washington’s marriage to Martha had brought him into the highest social circles in Virginia, whose style of life was closer to that of the English landed gentry than to a Yankee merchant from Massachusetts or Connecticut.
    “I always use my best London manners in his presence,” James confessed with a laugh. “But it wouldn’t count for a thing if I failed in my duties.”
    More subtly, however, James suspected the great man considered that his years in London made him useful. Washington would often ask himabout how he thought the English might react to one situation or another. He was also impressed that James had known Ben Franklin, and asked many questions about how he had conducted himself in London. When news came that Congress had sent Franklin to Paris to get French support, the general had remarked to James frankly: “What we do here is of great importance, but in the long run, the outcome of this war may be decided in Paris. I am glad you give me such a good account of Franklin’s abilities as a diplomatist.”
    If Washington liked what he considered the gentlemanly manners of the Old World, there was one aspect of British behavior, however, that gave him great concern. This was the terrible treatment given to American prisoners. James disapproved no less, but understood it better.
    “The British don’t consider us soldiers, even now. They see us as rebels, and to call us anything better would be to admit the legitimacy of our cause. So as far as they’re concerned, our Patriots captured at Brooklyn are not prisoners of war at all. They are traitors, sir, and lucky not to be hung.”
    This Washington could never accept.
    “I have reports of prisoners being treated worse than animals,” he exploded. And he gave particular instructions that any rough punishment his men might have been tempted to use toward the captured Hessians must be disallowed. He’d been writing personally in protest to the British generals ever since he took command. But there was no sign that the British took the slightest notice. “Have they no humanity?” he once cried to James.
    “To us, sir, humanity trumps legality,” James answered. “In England, it’s the other way round.”
    But though he knew that nothing would temper Washington’s honest outrage, James could not help reflecting that these continuing stories of British cruelty to American prisoners were having an effect all over the colonies that the British surely did not intend. A farmer bringing a cartload of fresh vegetables into the camp one day had said it all.
    “My son was taken prisoner. Why would I want to be ruled by people who treat him like an animal?”
    Meanwhile, despite the winter success against the Hessians, the Patriots’ position was still perilous. When Howe had recently tempted Washington to open battle in June, Washington had avoided the trap, but one large engagement could still destroy the Patriot army at any time.