Category: American History

New Bridge Landing NJ,  Over late 1777 and early 1778, dismayed by Washington’s repeated defeats, senior patriot military officers—most notably major generals Thomas Mifflin, Thomas Conway, and Horatio Gates—and allied political figures ostensibly launched an effort to limit Washington’s control of the Continental Army, if not to actually replace him with Gates. The episode has come down to us as the “Conway Cabal.” Since the 1941 publication of Bernhard Knollenberg’s Washington and the Revolution, however, most modern scholarship has discounted the existence of any serious “cabal,” writing off the matter as unfounded fears of conspiracy among Washington’s inner circle. Professor Lender will argue that the cabal was not only real, but that it posed a genuine threat to Washington’s command. Moreover, he believes that Mifflin, Gates and Conway—the “usual suspects”—indeed were at the heart of events. But instead of some clandestine conspiracy, Washington’s critics worked through the reorganized Board of War in which Mifflin and Gates held particular influence. Under their lead, the Board initiated measures to take control of vital army training and logistics functions as well as operational decisions. Enacted with congressional approval, these measures, had they succeeded, would have negated Washington’s prerogatives as commander-in-chief and left the title meaningless—whether or not Washington elected to remain in the army. The eventual defeat of the cabal was a key step in Washington’s consolidation of his position in the army and his rise to iconic status in the Revolution itself.