Washington then brashly declared his impatience with “chimney corner politicians” in Williamsburg and cited his failure to win a well-merited promotion in the British Army.³⁷ “In regard to myself, I must beg leave to say [that,] had His Excellency General Braddock survived his unfortunate defeat, I should have met with preferment equal to my wishes. I had his promise to that purpose.”³⁸ Washington also mentioned that, after their brave stand at Fort Necessity, his men had expected inclusion in the regular British Army. In sending this letter, Washington knew that he had overstepped political boundaries and confessed in closing, “When I look over the preceding pages and find how far I have exceeded my first intention, I blush with shame to think of my freedom.”³⁹

Driven by thwarted ambition, the still-gauche Washington resolved to advise Loudoun in person and prevailed upon Dinwiddie to allow him to go to Philadelphia to consult with him. The governors of five colonies flocked there to see him too, but Lord Loudoun, a haughty Scot with a reputation as a martinet, was in no special hurry to see anyone, forcing Washington to cool his heels for six weeks. From an aide to Loudoun, Washington learned that the general had admired his long letter, but when he met with him, the commander seemed deaf to his opinions. It was clear that Virginia had been assigned a secondary importance in imperial war strategy and that any assault on Fort Duquesne had been postponed. The only victory that Washington could claim was Loudoun’s decision that Maryland would take responsibility for Fort Cumberland, freeing the Virginia Regiment to man Virginia forts.

Before leaving Philadelphia, Washington wrote to Dinwiddie and vented his bitter outrage at the inferior status foisted upon the Virginia Regiment: “We can’t conceive that being Americans should deprive us of the benefits of British subjects, nor lessen our claim to preferment. And we are very certain that no body of regular troops ever before served 3 bloody campaigns without attracting royal notice. As to those idle arguments which are often times used—namely, ‘You are defending your own properties’—I look upon [them] to be whimsical and absurd. We are defending the King’s Dominions.”⁴⁰ This statement represented a huge intellectual leap: Washington was suddenly asserting that the imperial system existed to serve the king, not his overseas subjects. The equality of an Englishman in London and one in Williamsburg was purely illusory. In time, the Crown would pay dearly for Washington’s disenchantment with the fairness of the British military.

When the bruised young colonel returned to Winchester—the “cold and barren frontiers,” as he called them—he applauded one development: several hundred Catawba and Cherokee Indians had enlisted on the British side for the first time since the Fort Necessity debacle, an alliance that promptly embroiled Washington in a ghoulish commerce.⁴¹ The Virginia assembly had agreed to pay the Indians ten pounds for every enemy scalp they brought into camp. When a party of Cherokees arrived bearing four scalps and two prisoners, Washington hadn’t yet received the necessary gifts to reward them. “They are much dissatisfied that the presents are not here,” he told Dinwiddie, labeling these new Indian allies “the most insolent, most avaricious, and most dissatisfied wretches I have ever had to deal with.”⁴² The Indians were about to terminate the alliance, when the gifts belatedly arrived.

During this humiliating period, Washington often felt helpless in dealing with his men. Despite being threatened with punishment, more than a quarter of new recruits deserted, and Washington’s personal grievances fueled his rage at them. When a thousand lashes didn’t stop the desertions, he upped the penalty to a draconian fifteen hundred lashes. The historian Fred Anderson has estimated that Washington administered an average of six hundred lashes in each flogging, putting him on a par with his most severe British counterparts.⁴³ With icy determination, he even constructed a gibbet tall enough to instill terror in anybody contemplating desertion. “I have a gallows near 40 feet high erected (which has terrified the rest exceedingly) and I am determined . . . to hang two or three on it as an example to others,” he informed one officer.⁴⁴

That summer Washington decided to hang fourteen men for desertion. Fortunately, even as a young man he never acted heedlessly, and he gave way to second thoughts. Knowing his own nature, he let his temper cool. In the end, he pardoned twelve of the men—they had been kept “in a dark room, closely ironed”—and executed only two repeat offenders. “Your honor will, I hope, excuse my hanging instead of shooting them,” Washington told Dinwiddie. “It conveyed much terror to others and it was for example[’s] sake we did it.”⁴⁵ It should be noted that, while Washington didn’t balk at naked terror, he had already warned that recidivists would be hanged.

Throughout the summer Washington grew quarrelsome in correspondence with Dinwiddie, believing that his former patron was now hostile to him and opposed the regular commission he pursued. Indeed, Dinwiddie’s letters were often carping and demeaning in tone. The young officer felt at the mercy of an incompetent governor, who for his part felt powerless in dealing with Lord Loudoun and arbitrary instructions from London. The experience gave Washington new insight into the problem of being ruled by people overseas who were ignorant of local conditions.

He ventilated his dismay to his admirer, Speaker Robinson: “I am convinced it would give pleasure to the governor to hear that I was involved in trouble, however undeservedly.”⁴⁶ Dinwiddie must have heard that Washington was talking behind his back, because he scolded him that September. “My conduct to yo[u] from the beginning was always friendly, but you know I had g[rea]t reason to suspect yo[u] of ingratitude, which, I’m convinced, your own conscience and reflection must allow I had reason to be angry. But this I endeavor to forget.”⁴⁷ The reason that Dinwiddie endeavored to forget was that he was now ailing and had decided to return to England. Washington responded to his accusation with hot-tempered indignation: “I do not know that I ever gave your Honor cause to suspect me of ingratitude, a crime I detest, and would most carefully avoid.”⁴⁸ In the younger man’s view, he was merely guilty of speaking openly about policy errors imposed by the governor. The correspondence with Dinwiddie degenerated into petty bickering. When Washington asked for a leave of absence to visit Williamsburg, Dinwiddie scoffed that he had already been indulged with too many leaves. Washington returned a stinging retort: “It was not to enjoy a party of pleasure I wanted [a] leave of absence.”⁴⁹ Washington lost his other principal backer that September when Colonel Fairfax died and he made the melancholy journey to Belvoir to attend the funeral.

DOUBTLESS DISTURBING HIM that fall was a recurrence of the “bloody flux,” or dysentery, which had started around midsummer. The symptoms stole upon Washington so gradually that he functioned more or less normally at first. With his staunch commitment to work, he kept Governor Dinwiddie in the dark about his condition. Then in early November he felt the full brunt of the illness. As fellow officer Captain Robert Stewart described it, Washington was “seized with stitches and violent pleuritic pains . . . his strength and vigour diminished so fast that in a few days he was hardly able to walk.”⁵⁰ After Dr. Craik examined him, he warned Washington that his life was endangered and chided him for not seeking treatment sooner, saying that “your disorder hath been of long standing and hath corrupted the whole mass of blood. It will require some time to remove the cause.”⁵¹ Craik bled Washington several times, which only weakened him further. The doctor prescribed rest, fresh air, and water as offering Washington the best chance for recovery. His iron constitution having broken down, he relinquished command to Captain Stewart and set out for home.