George Washington's birthday deserves celebrating for a reason few Americans appreciate: at the end of the Revolutionary War, the future president prevented a military revolt that would have undermined the new republic. By early 1783, the fighting had ended, and the victorious Continental Army, headquartered at Newburgh , N.Y. , was waiting impatiently for American and British negotiators in Paris to complete the peace treaty.

Amid a brutal winter, the 11,000 soldiers were weary and restless, eager to collect their back pay and go home to renew their civilian lives. Congress, however, was unwilling to disband the army until a peace treaty was signed and the last British troops had left New York .

What threatened to ignite the combustible situation was the fact that the hamstrung Congress could not pay the army. It had no taxing authority; it depended upon the individual states for its revenue. And the states were not rushing to fill the national treasury.

Some soldiers were owed as much as six years of back pay. Officers were especially angry. In 1780 the Continental Congress had promised them lifetime pensions at half pay if they would serve out the war. Three years later those pledges seemed bankrupt. It did not help matters when some state officials called for the cash-strapped Congress simply to disband the national army and renege on its pledges to the troops.

In early 1783 a group of hotheaded American officers led by Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates hatched a plot to oust George Washington as commander in chief and take control of the impotent Congress and the new nation. Gates nursed a festering grudge against Washington , and he seized the chance to embarrass his rival.

In March, Gates and his lieutenants circulated a message inviting all officers to a secret meeting to plan a rebellion. "If the present moment be lost," the circular said, "your threats hereafter will be as empty as your entreaties now."

On the morning of March 15, 500 officers crowded into a large meeting hall in Newburgh . The air was electric with the energy of intrigue and resentment. As Gen. Gates called for quiet and began speaking to the mutinous group, George Washington walked on stage. Gates had no choice but to defer.

The commander in chief told the hostile audience that the effort to intimidate the government by threatening a coup violated the very purposes for which the war was fought and directly challenged his own integrity. While agreeing that the officers had been poorly treated by the government and deserved their long overdue back pay and future pensions, he expressed his "horror and detestation" of any effort by the military to assume dictatorial powers. He told the officers that they should do nothing to "lessen the dignity and sully the glory" of what they had accomplished on the battlefield. A military revolt would open "the flood-gates of civil discord" and "deluge our rising empire in blood."

Washington closed his heartfelt remarks by reading a letter from a congressman explaining the new nation's financial plight. Before reading it, he dramatically paused to don a pair of glasses. "Gentlemen," he apologized, "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but blind in the service of my country."

It was a virtuoso performance by the venerable commander. Maj. Samuel Shaw recorded in his journal the emotional reaction to Washington 's speech: "There was something so natural, so unaffected in this appeal as he rendered it superior to the most studied oratory. It forced its way to the heart, and you might see sensibility moisten every eye."

No sooner had Washington finished his speech than he folded the letter, removed his spectacles, and left the hall. His supporters immediately proposed resolutions renewing their loyalty to Washington and the Congress. The mutiny disintegrated. Soon thereafter, Congress fashioned a new plan to pay the army, and the crisis was averted.

In defusing the rebellion while coaxing Congress to find a solution, George Washington demonstrated that the new nation would be a republic of laws. He also displayed the poise and courage that would define his presidency. For this, and for so much more, we remember and celebrate the first commander in chief.