THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602170008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
The most imposing founding father of them all, whose birthday we mark next week, came very close to removal from the scene quite early in the Revolutionary War, even before the Declaration of Independence was signed. That is, according to the scariest of the stories told at the time about some Tory-British intrigue along the New York fighting front in mid-1776.
My wife and I came across the account when she was looking up an ancestor who served in the special guard force General Washington set up early in the war to stand watch over him and the voluminous war papers that were accumulating in his headquarters.
A version of the affair that historian Carlos E. Godfrey passed along in his detail-filled book, The Commander-in-Chief's Guard, went this way:
The general was the key target in a rumored conspiracy that contemplated a Tory uprising upon the arrival of a British fleet in the vicinity of Continental Army forces. With the help of a few turncoat members of Washington's security force, King's Bridge was to be destroyed, magazines fired and Washington and his staff murdered. The method of assassination reportedly chosen was the poisoning of some green peas - a favorite Washington dish - by Pvt. Thomas Hickey, a trusted soldier in the general's Guard. However, on the day of the planned assassination (June 15, 1776), the housekeeper who had pretended to go along with the conspirators warned the general. He had the peas sent away, and a roundup of suspects followed.
Whether events were planned and proceeded in exactly this way, historian Godfrey didn't profess to know. And other Washington biographers, including Douglas Southall Freeman, have been circumspect about the precise intent and movements of the plotters, giving the affair only a little attention. Certain of the biographers noted another confusion-generating report - that when the pea scheme failed, the stabbing of the general became a part of the plan.
But an inquiry in that summer of '76 by a Committee of Congress decided that indeed there had been a serious clandestine threat to the American military headquarters. The committee concluded that there was a plot afoot (involving the New York mayor among others then sympathizing with the British). And a court-martial found Hickey guilty of mutiny, sedition and treachery. The court ordered him hung. General Washington and a council of officers confirmed the sentence.
Before June was out, Hickey was hung and left very dead. There is no question at all about his execution, which took place in public and was intended as a warning to others.
Mayor David Matthews was also sentenced to die - in a separate proceeding - on charges growing out of the same conspiracy, but his sentence was later remitted. The eventual fate of others in the alleged cabal is not recorded.
At any rate, here was high drama by any standard (with a potential for changing the course of American and world history), an occurrence which was either omitted or down-played to the point of insignificance in the upbeat Revolutionary War chronicles that were standard fare in my school days.
Some of the soft-pedaling may be attributable to Washington himself, for whom any hint of betrayal by persons close to him must have been both frightening and embarrassing. As to those later tellers of the story who seemed to think it was all just a little blip in the general revolutionary turmoil, they may have been influenced by a scarcity of hard facts along the research trail.
Even so, I'd say this episode deserves a lot more prominent treatment in the record. That GW-endorsed hanging is a pretty hard fact in itself. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk.
by CNB