Conway+Cabal

From **//Military Leaders in the American Revolution//** by Joseph B. Mitchell. From pages 140-141.

"During the [winter of 1777-78] a number of dissatisfied people began making unfavorable comparisons between Gates, who had won Saratoga, and Washington, who had lost Brandywine and Germantown. Such comparisons, based on emotion rather than logic, were, of course, inevitable and unfair. Washington, by his silence, ignored them. Gates, by his silence, condoned [or supported] them. There is then supposed to have arisen a conspiracy to [replace] Washington as commander-in-chief. This conspiracy became known as the "Conway Cabal." It was named for Thomas Conway, an Irish adventurer who had been appointed a brigadier general in the army. This conspiracy was always a mysterious sort of thing. Very little concerning it was ever definitely proved and eventualy the idea of supplanting Washington simply collapsed.

"However, the conspiracy may have left its mark upon Gates. In other words he may have become a victim of its propaganda: that he, not Washington, was the great American general of the Revolution."