Cabal!: The Plot Against George Washington

This will be the definitive history of the Conway Cabal by a distinguished historian. The Conway Cabal, named for the chief conspirator, Thomas Conway, was an attempt by a group of senior Continental officers to remove George Washington from command beginning in late 1777. The primary evidence has been letters written by Conway criticizing Washington and suggesting there were other officers who would bring better results to the war effort. These letters were disclosed to the Second Continental Congress which then unraveled the plot. Among those implicated was Horatio Gates whose own adjutant, James Wilkinson a duplicitous character himself had alerted Washington to the plot providing incriminating correspondence by Gates. Gates was forced to publicly apologize and, ironically, the man who thought he could do a better job than Washington, soon lost his entire army to Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden, in addition to fleeing the battlefield! The author provides the complete background to the plot as well as its aftermath (including the Newburgh Conspiracy), and presents the Conway Cabal as it is generally known by historians in order to set up his achievement, which has been to carefully scour existing correspondence to reveal that the plot was much larger and much closer to achieving success than has been recognised.