The creation of an army, however, was attended by personal disagreements that eventually wrecked the Administration.  Without waiting to hear from Washington as to his views, Adams nominated him for the command and then tried to overrule his arrangements.  The notion that Washington could be hustled into a false position was a strange blunder to be made by anyone who knew him.  He set forth his views and made his stipulations with his customary precision, in letters to Secretary McHenry, who had been instructed by Adams to obtain Washington’s advice as to the list of officers.  Washington recommended as major-generals, Hamilton, C.C.  Pinckney, and Knox, in that order of rank.  Adams made some demur to the preference shown for Hamilton, but McHenry showed him Washington’s letter and argued the matter so persistently that Adams finally sent the nominations to the Senate in the same order as Washington had requested.  Confirmation promptly followed, and a few days later Adams departed for his home at Quincy, Massachusetts, without notice to his Cabinet.  It soon appeared that he was in the sulks.  When McHenry wrote to him about proceeding with the organization of the army, he replied that he was willing provided Knox’s precedence was acknowledged, and he added that the five New England States would not patiently submit to the humiliation of having Knox’s claim disregarded.

From August 4 to October 13, wrangling over this matter went on.  The members of the Cabinet were in a difficult position.  It was their understanding that Washington’s stipulations had been accepted, but the President now proposed a different arrangement.  Pickering and McHenry wrote to Washington explaining the situation in detail.  News of the differences between Adams and Washington of course soon got about and caused a great buzz in political circles.  Adams became angry over the opposition he was meeting, and on August 29 he wrote to McHenry that “there has been too much intrigue in this business, both with General Washington and with me”; that it might as well be understood that in any event he would have the last say, “and I shall then determine it exactly as I should now, Knox, Pinckney, and Hamilton.”  Washington stood firm and, on September 25, wrote to the President demanding “that he might know at once and precisely what he had to expect.”  In reply Adams said that he had signed the three commissions on the same day in the hope “that an amicable adjustment or acquiescence might take place among the gentlemen themselves.”  But should this hope be disappointed, “and controversies shall arise, they will of course be submitted to you as commander-in-chief.”