#general gates

[thebulletinhamilton-quotes]

George Washington to General Gates: All I wanna do is feed my birds and be in peace but people like you never received any love in your childhood so you have to start trouble for no reason other than to feel attention. You must have a horses cock.

Alexander Hamilton:

Alexander Hamilton: BURNN!

[hippography]

FIG. 1. -- General Gates 666. Morgan stallion for many years at head of stud at U.S. Morgan Horse Farm

Source: Breeding Morgan Horses at the U.S. Morgan Horse Farm. United States Department of Agriculture, Department Circular 199. By H. H. Reese, Animal Husbandman, Animal Husbandry Division, Bureau of Animal Industry. Issued November 1929, revised October, 1926.

[thephantomofthelibrary]

I don’t need to tell you that I am very sorry for all that has happened… . When I was in Europe I thought that here almost every man was a lover of liberty, and would rather die free than live a slave. You can conceive my astonishment when I saw that toryism was an openly professed as whiggism: however, at that time I believed all that all good Americans were united together… . I wish you could know, as well as myself, what difference, there is between you and any other man … you would see very plainly that if you were lost for America, there is nobody who could keep the army and the revolution for six months… . There are open dissensions in Congress, parties who hate one another as much as the common enemy; stupid men, who, without knowing a single word about war, undertake to judge you, to make ridiculous comparisons; they are infatuated with Gates … and believe that attacking is the only thing necessary to conquer … perhaps secret friends to the British government, who want to push you … to some rash enterprise upon the lines of against a much stronger enemy.

Letter written by Lafayette to Washington (I believe it was dated 30 December 1777 which can be found on Founders Online if you want to read the whole letter)

In Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.61

[thephantomofthelibrary]

Lafayette spent three weeks in Philadelphia, charming and winning the friendships of congressmen of every political persuasion - New York’s witty Gouverneur Morris, a staunch friend and supporter of Washington; Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, who had been an equally staunch supporter of Gates; and even the irascible Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, who supported no one but himself. All were as eager to meet Lafayette as he was to meet them. Many were Freemasons who embraced him and called him brother. It was his signal personal gift to appear a disinterested friend of America and of liberty and, at each encounter, to win with the awe and admiration of members of every political faction. He had been through much, had conducted himself heroically, had fought, bled, and risked death for their country, and asked nothing in return but their respect and friendship. His skill in winning both proved remarkable.

Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.89

[thephantomofthelibrary]

My Dear Marquis, - Your favour of yesterday conveyed to me fresh proof of that friendship and attachment, which I have happily experienced since the first of our acquaintance, and for which I entertain sentiments of the purest affection. It will ever constitute part of my happiness to know that I stand well in your opinion; because I am satisfied that you can have no views to answer by throwing out false colours, and that you posses a mind too exalted to condescend to low arts and intrigues to acquire a reputation. Happy, thrice happy, would it have been for this army and the cause we are embarked in, if the same generous spirit had pervaded all the actors in it. But one gentleman [Gates], whose’s name you have mentions, had, I am confident, far different views; his ambition and great desire of being puffed off, as one of the first officers of the age, could only be equalled by the means which he used to obtain them … he became my inveterate enemy;  and he had, I am persuaded, practised every art to do me an enjury [sic]… . The fatal tendency of disunion is so obvious … but we must not, in so great a test, expect to meet with nothing but sunshine. I have no doubt that everything happens for the best, that we shall triumph over our misfortunes, and, in the end, be happy; when, my dear marquis, id you will give me your company in Virginia, we will laugh at out past difficulty and the folly of others.

George Washington in a letter to his dear Marquis, Lafayette. (Dated 31 December 1777 which can be seen in full on founders online.)

In Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.61

[thephantomofthelibrary]

Worse news followed. In mid-June, 1780, Horatio Gates, the so-called hero of Saratoga, took command of the Southern Department and, against the advice of baron de Kalb, sent 3,000 untrained Patriot troops to Camden, South Carolina, to face Lord Cornwallis’s legendary British cavalry. The British sliced through the American lines and sent the Patriots fleeing in panic - except for Kalb’s contingent of infantrymen on the right flank. At Gates’s insistence, Kalb ordered his men to hold fast. Infuriated by their audacity at refusing the option to withdraw, Colonel Banastre Tarleton ordered horse troops to slaughter the stubborn Americans. The ensuing massacre left nearly 900 Patriots dead. Among the last to fall was the gigantic Kalb, Lafayette’s old friend. After his wounded horse collapsed beneath him, Kalb slashed wildly at the piercing thrusts of British bayonets until, finally, a series of blows to the head by enemy rifle butts sen the great soldier of fortune to his knees. A few more stabs assured his end in the South Carolina much. Kalb had come to America plotting Washington’s overthrow and met his end loyally defending him.

Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.115