Among the Founding Fathers there were definitive class biases. Most
of these men, like Washington (1732-99) and Thomas Jefferson, were
wealthy land- and slave-owners who led aristocratic lifestyles and were
elitist toward the “lower” classes. (Washington noted in a letter, for
example, that those not of the upper classes were to be “treated
civilly” but to be kept “at a proper distance, for they will grow upon
familiarity, in proportion as you sink in authority.”) Socialists these
men were not. Yet some of their personal ethics and standards would
reveal that they were more open to what would be considered a “modern,”
21st-century perspective on life, love and sexuality than might be
presumed in the stodgy, post-Puritan 18th-century colonies.
This was particularly true of Washington, whose stance on
homosexuality, which at the time was punishable by imprisonment,
castration and even death throughout the colonies, was noticeably — even
dramatically — relaxed in comparison to many of his cohorts. His
personal correspondence and diaries bear this out.
As his letters (over 17,000 have been collected at the University of Virginia) and diaries affirm, Washington was above all a pragmatist.
Washington’s views on democracy, liberty and the codified “pursuit of happiness” that current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cited specifically in his ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which overturned federal sodomy laws, were straightforward. Washington’s letters, diaries, military
papers and conversations with friends and colleagues of his era were
all succinct: He believed in freedom with discipline; he was
left-leaning, but no anarchist. He looked the other way on matters that
may have otherwise raised eyebrows when it was the pragmatic thing to
do, as he would throughout his tenure as both military leader and leader of the nation.
One of these issues was homosexuality in the military. . . . . Washington’s stance on homosexuality, which evolved well before his views on slavery as has been chronicled by historians and military documents (Washington’s own and others) from Valley Forge.
Part of Washington’s genius as a strategist was his ability to rally
troops — literally. All the documentation from the era states without
equivocation that Washington inspired tremendous loyalty in all levels
of his military.
By all accounts, a man’s man, Washington was superb at all kinds of
sport. Considered the best horseman of his time — Jefferson wrote
extensively about Washington’s prowess — and one of the strongest men
any of his compatriots had ever met, his feats of strength were
regularly recorded.
Washington’s letters state that he was less than thrilled with marital
life (“not much fire between the sheets”) and preferred the company of
men — particularly the young Alexander Hamilton, who he made his
personal secretary — to that of women, as his letters attest. His
concern for his male colleagues clearly extended to their personal
lives. This was especially true of Hamilton, who he brought with him to
Valley Forge, giving Hamilton a cabin to share with his then-lover, John
Laurens, to whom Hamilton had written passionate love letters which are
still extant.
Letters of Washington’s make clear that while he cared deeply for
Martha and her children, there was no passion between them. Nor are
there records of Washington’s dalliances with other women, as there are
with Thomas Jefferson, for example, who was a womanizer with both
colonial and slave women.
Washington’s passion was reserved for his work and for the men with
whom he served closely, notably Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette.
When Hamilton was a young soldier – later to be made Secretary of the
Treasury by Washington and then president himself – he was engaged in
relationships with other men, as love letters he sent during the
Revolutionary War prove.
Historians assert that passionate same-sex friendships were normative
in the 18th century. At the same time, however, sodomy and open
homosexuality were punishable by imprisonment, castration and even
death, both in and out of the military.
Washington was a gay-friendly pragmatist who put the
importance of the revolutionary struggle above the concerns of civilian
life.
While some have tried to make the case for Washington being gay
predicated on his special friendships, there’s nothing in his papers
that could be considered proof the way his growing queasiness about
slave-owning was proven by his will. Nevertheless, Washington was
certainly gay-friendly.
The most succinct evidence for this was Washington’s clear “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” policy when it came to same-sex coupling among his
regiments at Valley Forge.
Renowned gay historian Randy Shilts makes the case for Washington’s
ever-pragmatic as well as compassionate approach to same-sex
relationships in “Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. military.”
Shilts details how Washington merely signed the order for discharge
of a soldier caught in flagrante with another soldier, and suggests that
if Lt. Col. Aaron Burr had not forced the issue, the soldier might have
remained at Valley Forge instead of being the first documented case of a
discharge for homosexuality in the Continental Army on March 15, 1778
at Valley Forge. . . . The soldier just walked away.
What makes this so stunning and an irrefutable proof of Washington’s leniency on homosexuality in the military is the context.
That Washington looked the other way with same-sex couples is most
obvious in his dealings with Maj. Gen. Frederich Wilhelm von Steuben,
the Prussian military
genius he enlisted to help him strategize at Valley Forge. Von Steuben
arrived at the encampment two weeks before Enslin’s discharge and
arrived with his young French assistant, Pierre Etienne Duponceau, who
was presumed to be his lover, in tow, making Enslin’s subsequent
discharge ironic and reinforcing the theory that it was Burr, not
Washington, who compelled the action.
Von Steuben is perhaps the best-known gay man in American military
history. Although his sexual orientation is rarely mentioned and has
been excised from standard history books, his role in winning the
Revolutionary War was incomparable and second only to Washington’s own. . . .
He authored the “Revolutionary War Drill Manual” which was used through
the War of 1812 and his other maneuvers were used for more than 150
years.
Von Steuben also came to Valley Forge as a known homosexual:
It was Benjamin Franklin who provided the letters of recommendation to
Washington, but Franklin was aware that von Steuben had been implicated
in relationships with boys and young men and had been expelled from the
court of Frederick the Great for homosexual behavior and was on the
verge of being prosecuted when he left Germany for France.
Von Steuben’s relationship with Washington was close and there were
no conflicts with Washington over von Steuben’s sleeping arrangements at
Valley Forge with his young Frenchman, Duponceau. What’s more, because
von Steuben’s English was limited, but his French was perfect,
Washington assigned his own secretary and one of his aides-de-camp to
von Steuben.
Who were the men? Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton and Lt. Col. John
Laurens, who shared a cabin at Valley Forge at Washington’s bequest. And
as noted historian Jonathan Katz details, Hamilton and Laurens were
lovers.
It’s not revisionist to assert that Washington’s pattern of ignoring
same-sex relationships at Valley Forge was both indicative of his
pragmatic nature (without von Steuben, Hamilton, Lafayette and others,
America might still be a colony of the British)
and of his seeming lack
of concern over homosexuality.
Washington obviously considered morale in what was inarguably the most horrific battle station in U.S. military
history, the winter at Valley Forge, needed to be upheld. Allowing men
their one solace — each other — made sense from a general’s point of
view. The less miserable the soldiers, the better they would fight. If
keeping each other warm in the bone-crushing cold and abject misery
(2,500 soldiers died at Valley Forge from starvation, disease and
exposure) made life somewhat more bearable, then Washington had no issue
with ignoring homosexuality in his ranks.
Washington didn’t just look the other way but specifically sought to
help these gay soldiers as well as that passing woman, Sampson. This is
irrefutable proof — in Washington’s own records and that of others —
that the Father of Our Country was gay-friendly toward his key military
personnel at the most pivotal point in American history. Washington
didn’t think morale suffered with gay soldiers serving under him or
even, in the case of von Steuben and Hamilton, being his key
strategists. Rather, he saw these men for their value to him and to the
nation — a fact that should be added to every American history textbook.
