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THE LIFE and CORRESPONDENCE of JAMES Mchenry

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THE LIFE and CORRESPONDENCE of JAMES Mchenry BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME . FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HentQ m. Sage 1891 .fJAdi'J.P.! Sr.S<.JTr.l.oS.. 3513-1 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 259 982 Cornell University ml Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924081259982 THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JAMES McHENRY GEORGE WASHINGTON Reproduced in original size (rom miniature owned by the heirs of Dr. James McHenry {Copyright, 1907, The Burrows Brothers Company) THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JAMES McHENRY SECRETARY OF WAR UNDER WASHINGTON AND ADAMS BY BERNARD C. STEINER Cleveland THE BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY 1907 A- COPYRIGHT, 1907 THE BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY CONTENTS Preface ....... IX I. Early Years and Medical Study, 1753-1775 1 II. Surgeon and Prisoner, 1775-1778 6 III. Washington's Secretary, 1778-1780 19 IV. Lafayette's Aid, 1780-1781 29 V. The Maryland Senate and the Confederation Congress, until Washington's Resignation of his Commission in December, 1783 . 41 VI. Marriage and Retirement from Public Life, 1784-1786 75 VII. Member of the Federal Constitutional Conven- tion, 1787-1788 97 VIII. Member of the House of Delegates, 1788-1790 114 IX. A Year of Retirement, 1790-1791 128 X. Second Term in the Senate, 1791-1796 132 XI. Washington's Secretary of War, 1796-1797 . 163 XII. A Year in the War Department under Adams, 1797-1798 208 XIII. The Provisional Army and the Strife over the Generals, 1798-1799 .... 309 XIV. Events after the Nomination of the French En- voys, 1799-1800 370 XV. Fries 's Rebellion and the West in 1798-1800 432 XVI. The Federalists in the Presidential Campaign of 1800 452 XVII. Retirement and Defense of his Administration of the War Office, 1801-1803 . 497 XVIII. The Federalists in Opposition, 1803-1812 520 XIX. McHenry's Last Days, 1812-1816 580 Appendices ...... 619 Index ....... 625 ; ILLUSTRATIONS Jliniature Portrait of Washington, by "William Eussell Birch ..... Frontispiece While Dr. James McHenry was Washington's secretary of war, he purchased a miniature portrait of Washington, painted by the artist named above. William Russell Birch was born in Warwick, England, April 9, 1755. and died in Philadelphia August 7, 1834. He studied enamel painting in London, anc^ in 1784 was awarded the silver pale_tte by the Society of Arts, for the production of a new enamel color—the red-brown that he ever afterwards used in his backgrounds. Hp came to America in 1794, when he ceased to use his middle name. In regard to his miniatures of Washington he says In his MS. auto- biography : "When he [Washington] was sitting for Stuart [1795] he [Wash- ington] told him he had heard there was another artist of merit from London, naming myself ; that he would sit for me if I chose. I thanked Mr. Stuart that as he had painted his picture it would be a mark of the highest imposition to trouble the General to sit tor me, but that when I had copied his [Stuart's] picture of him in enamel, which was my forte, that I would show it to the Gen- eral and thank him for his kind offer, which when I had done, I waited upon the General with a note that an artist waited the honor of showing personally to the General a specimen of his talents. When I saw the General I put the picture into his hands he looked at it steadfastly, but, from a peculiarity of solid (stolid?) habit of manner, left me to look at him as solid (stolid?) till feeling myself awkward I began the history of enamel painting which by the time I had got through he complimented me upon the beauty of my work. I then told him how much he was beholden to Mr. Stuart for the correctness of his likeness. I copied one enamel from it which was purchased by Mr. McHenry. From this portrait I made a correct drawing, the copying of which in enamel supplied me in work for a considerable time. I painted about sixty portraits of it from $30 to $100 each." The above information was supplied by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, the recognized authority on historical portraiture in America, and supplements very completely such information as had previously been possessed by the family and Dr. Bernard C. Steiner, our editor. Mr. Hart further states that Birch brought with him from Eng- land but one letter of Introduction and that was from Benjamin West, the Pennsylvania president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London to William Bingham of Philadelphia, It was for Bing- ham that Stuart painted his first portrait of Washington which is now in the collection of Marsden J. Perry, Esq., of Providence, R. I. This is the one that Birch copied in enamel. Harper's Magazine for August, 1896, in an article on Stuart's Lansdowne portrait of Washington, says: "When William Birch desired to make an enamel portrait of Wtohington, Stuart gave him his first head to copy and Washington stamped it with his approval." This portrait Is at present owned by the heirs of Dr. James Mc- Henry. Miniature Portrait of Margaret Caldwell McHenry (Mrs. James McHenry) . facing 76 At present owned by the heirs of Dr. James McHenry of Baltimore. viii Illustrations Miniature Portrait of Dr. James McHenry . facing 160 Military secretary to Washington during part of the Revolutionary war. fSecretary of war 1796-1800. In liis honor Fort McHenry, Baltimore, wa.s named. Owned at present by the heirs of Dr. James McHenry. Portrait of George Washington . facing 420 Reproduction, reduced in sire, of the Birch miniature of Washington which appears in colors as frontispiece. Profile Portrait of Dr. James McHenry . facing 580 Reproduction much reduced in size. The artist is supposed to have been St. Memin. Owned by the heirs of Dr. James McHenry. PREFACE THE heirs of Dr. James McHenry have placed in my hands a trunk eontaining the correspondence and other manuscripts of their ancestor, with the request that I use these papers in the preparation of his biography. An examination of the collection showed its richness in unpublished letters written by the greatest men of the period of the American revolution and revealed the afEection felt for McHenry by his many friends. The varied relation to public affairs which McHenry held during his life also made the papers of extraordinary interest. He came to the British North American colonies from the north of Ireland and had just completed a course of study in medicine under Dr. Benja- Qiin Rush of Philadelphia, when the war of independence broke out. As a surgeon, a prisoner of war, a member of Washing- ton 's military family, and an aid to Lafayette, McHenry saw service throughout that great conflict and, at its close, became a legislator, being a member at the same time of the Maryland Senate, and of the Confederation Congress. In partnership with his father and brother in a successful mercantile business in Baltimore, he early accumulated a competence. In 1787, he served in the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia and, in succeeding years, was a Federalist member of the Maryland legislature, serving in both House of Delegates and Senate. Washington called him to become Secretary of War in January 1796, and, in that position, McHenry continued during most of Adams's administration. He retired to private life in May, 1800, and spent the sixteen years which still remained of his life as a private citizen, keeping a keen interest in polities and maintaining an active correspondence with Federalist leaders in Congress. Throughout his whole life, he showed himself a pure minded, high spirited, courteous, Christian gentleman. He was a man of rare charm and attractiveness, who gained and kept the love of the best men of his time. A mere list of names of his intima/te friends, scores of whose letters are here published for the first time, proves the noblenass and loveliness of his character. Wash- X Preface ington loved him, as he loved few men. The men with whom McHenry was associated in the Eevolutionary army, such as Hamilton, Lafayette and Tallmadge, never lost the esteem they there learned to feel for him. Among the men he met in later public life, he gained the warm friendship of persons of such diverse characteristics as Pickering, William Vans Murray, and Uria;h Tracy. The correspondence of men who played so prominent a part in affairs reveals much of import- ance upon the history of the times. I have been fortunate enough to be able to consult the papers of Washington and Hamilton, while these papers were in the custody of the De- partment of State in Washington, and the papers of Pickering in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society and, so to have seen both sides of the noteworthy correspondence of McHenry with those men. It is a privilege to have studied the life of so attractive and upright a man as McHenry — one wiho compelled friendship and was faithful in the performance of every duty committed to his care. Bernard C. Steiner. CHAPTER I EABLY YEARS AND MEDICAL STUDY 1753-1775 AMONG the Scotch Irish Presbyterian settlers who came to America in the eighteenth century were a father and two sons from Ballymena, near Belfast, county Antrim, Ireland. The elder of the sons, James McHenry, came first in 1771, sent out on a voyage to the colonies, because his health had become impaired by too close application to studies at a classical academy in Dublin.
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