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Conway Cabal

The Conway Cabal was a movement undertaken by American military officers and political leaders to remove General George Washington from command of the Continental Army during the winter of 1777-78. These Patriot leaders had lost confidence in Washington's cautious style of leadership and plotted to replace him with the more energetic General Horatio Gates, hero of Saratoga.

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Horatio Gates

Horatio Gates (1727-1806) was an English-born general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Initially viewed as a hero for his stunning victory at the Battles of Saratoga, Gates' reputation was later tarnished by both his involvement in the Conway Cabal to replace George Washington as army commander, and his catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Camden.

Early Life & British Service

Horatio Gates was born on 26 July 1727 in Maldon, Essex County, England. He was likely the son of working-class parents Robert and Dorothea Gates; his mother, a housekeeper for the Duke of Bolton, was able to use her position to secure opportunities for her family that otherwise would have been out of reach. For instance, through her friendship with the waiting-maid of the Walpole family, Dorothea Gates managed to get future English writer and politician Horace Walpole (who was 11 years old at the time) to be the godfather of her son. In 1745, 18-year-old Horatio Gates was able to purchase a commission as an ensign in the British Army, largely thanks to the influence of the Duke of Bolton.

The young Ensign Gates has been described by biographers in unflattering terms; one characterized him as a "little ruddy-faced Englishman peering through his thick spectacles" and a "snob of the first water" (quoted in Boatner, 412). He first served with the 20th Regiment of Foot in Germany during the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) before volunteering to travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to serve under its governor, Edward Cornwallis; Cornwallis was not only an early mentor to Gates but also the uncle of Lord Charles Cornwallis, who would one day face Gates on the battlefield. Promoted to the rank of captain in the 45th Regiment of Foot, Gates saw action against the Mi'kmaq and Acadians in Canada. In 1754, he married Elizabeth Philips, daughter of a Nova Scotia councilman, with whom he would have one son, Robert (b. 1758).

In 1755, as the French and Indian War (1754-1763) was escalating in North America, British General Edward Braddock was sent to lead an expedition to capture the French-held Fort Duquesne and thereby assert British control of the Ohio River Valley. Gates traveled to Fort Cumberland, Maryland, to join the expedition, where he would have met several other men who would one day also play key roles in the American Revolution including Daniel Morgan, Thomas Gage, Charles Lee, and, of course, Lt. Colonel George Washington of the Virginia militia. Braddock's Expedition set out on 29 May 1755 and made it to the Monongahela River a little over a month later, where it was ambushed by French troops and their Indigenous allies. General Braddock was killed in the ambush, and a large portion of his army became casualties including Gates, who was wounded. The survivors retreated to friendly territory.

After the Battle of the Monongahela, Gates was mainly relegated to positions of military administration, something at which he proved exceptionally talented. He served as chief-of-staff first to Brigadier General John Stanwix and then to Stanwix's replacement, Robert Monckton. In 1762, Gates accompanied Monckton in the capture of Martinique. Although Gates did not experience much combat during the expedition, he was nevertheless tasked with bringing news of the victory to England and was rewarded with a promotion to the rank of major. The war ended the following year and Gates returned to England, only to realize he had little future in the British Army; the limitations put on him by his social status meant that he could not advance much further in the military than he already had. Frustrated, Gates sold his major's commission in 1769 and, with assistance from his old army comrade George Washington, moved to Virginia with his family. Gates purchased Traveler's Rest, a Berkeley County plantation next door to Washington's younger brother, Samuel. As Gates began his new life as a Virginian planter, he also purchased several enslaved people to labor in his fields.

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